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RELIGIONS OF THE 
PAST AND PRESENT 



RELIGIONS OF THE 
PAST AND PRESENT 



A SERIES OF LECTURES DELIVERED 
BY MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY OF 
THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 



EDITED BY 

JAMES A. MONTGOMERY, Ph.D., S.T.D, 




PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 

1918 






COPYRIGHT, 191 8, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 



PUBLISHED JANUARY, 1918 



MAR 14 I9i8 



Electrotyped and Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company 
At the Washington Square Press ^ Philadelphia^ U.S.A. 



©CU4925G8 



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^ 



TO 

PROVOST EDGAR FAHS SMITH 

IN GRATEFUL RECOGNITION OF HIS SERVICES FOR 
THE WIDER USEFULNESS OF THE UNIVERSITY, 
THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED BY THE LECTURERS 



PREFACE 

The widespread interest in the history of religion was 
well attested by the enthusiasm and interest aroused by 
the following lectures delivered during the winter of 191 6- 
191 7 by members of the Faculty of the Graduate School 
of the University of Pennsylvania. 

We believe that the reader will find a peculiar merit 
in the volume as each religion is treated by one who has 
made a specialty of that field. It was left to each man 
to set forth his subject according to his own ideas of 
matter and proportion — the result is the bracing individ- 
uality of each chapter, and the spontaneity of the whole. 

To bring home to our readers the ideals, the history, 
and the significance of certain great religions has been 
our aim, and in our endeavor simplicity, directness, and 
accuracy have been our standards. We have not gone 
beyond the original group of University lectures in order 
to secure a treatment of religions not herein discussed; 
the book remains therefore entirely a product of the 
Faculty of the University of Pennsylvania. 

James A. Montgomery 

Chairman (1916-1917) of the 
Group of the History of Religions, 
University of Pennsylvania 
December i, 191 7 



CONTENTS 



Chaptkk Pagb 

I. PRIMITIVE RELIGION 9 

Definition of Religion; diversity of the Primitive field, 
p. 9 — science, philosophy, advanced conceptions in 
Primitive religion, 10-13 — ^varieties in cult, 14-15 — 
Animism, 15-18 — Totemism, 18-20 — Fetishism, 20-21 — 
Taboo, 21-23 — Primitive ethics, 23-26 — the Culture 
Hero, 26-28 — the Gluskabe Cycle, 28-30 — ^absence of 
original monotheism, belief in life after death, 3of — 
Bibliography, 32. 

Frank G. Speck. Ph.D. 

II. THE EGYPTIAN RELIGION 33 

Over-estimation of the religious wisdom of the Egyptians, 
p. 33 — conservatism preserved primitive forms and ideas, 
34 — revolution effected in Egyptology by the Pyramid 
Texts, 34-36 — primitive animism of the Egyptians, the 
gods localized spirits, 36-39 — partial elevation of the 
gods to cosmic sphere, 38 — the sun-god and gods, 39 — 
moon, planets, 40 — the sky, 41-43 — the earth and ocean 
gods, 43 — retention of many ancient gods without a 
mythology, 44 — the Osirian circle, Osiris, Isis, Horus, 
Seth, 45-48 — explanation of the deep impression made 
by the Egyptian religion upon the Greeks and Romans, 
48f— BibUography, 49. 

W. Max Muller, Ph.D. 

III. THE RELIGION OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA ... 50 

The Svunerian and Akkadian elements in Babylonia, p. 
50 — their civilizations, 51-53 — ^Assyria 53 — ^primitive 
animism of the religion, 54 — early local gods, Ea, EnUl, 
Ningirsu, 'etc., 55f — Marduk, 56 — absorption of deities 
into one, differentiation of divine fimctions into many 
deities, 57 — centraHzation of pantheons, triads, 58f — the 
Assyrian pantheon, Ashur, etc., 59-61 — monotheizing 
tendencies, 61 — the cult, 62ff — incantations, 64-65 — 
their spiritual elements, 65-67 — divination, 67ff — liver 
divination, 68-70 — astrology, 70-72 — omens, 72 — festi- 
vals, 73 — ethical ideals, 73ff— Bibliography, 75, 

Morris Jastrow, Jr., Ph.D., LL.D 
3 



CONTENTS 

IV. THE HEBREW RELIGION 76 

Rediscovery of the ancient world, p. 76 — geographical 
position of Palestine and its effects on Hebrew religion, 
78-80 — divisions of the history into the ist century A. D., 
80-82 — the God of the Hebrews, his intense personality, 
82ff — criticism of "Ethical Monotheism," 82 — his self- 
revelation, 83 — ^his particularism, 84 — his unique relation 
with Israel, 86 — ^relation with other divine beings, 87- 
89 — ^his hypostases, 89 — origin of Hebrew monotheism, 
9^>^3 — ^inner logic, 93 — ^his relation to the world, 94-96 
— the problem of evil, 96 — a God of history, 97-101 — 
man's moral relation to Yah we, 1 01-103 — position of the 
cult, 103 — Prophecy, 104-106 — the ritual and its his- 
torical stages, 106-109 — eschatology, I09ff — Bibliog- 
raphy, 112. 

James A. Montgomery, Ph.D., ST.D. 

V. THE RELIGION OF THE VEDA 114 

The Vedic literature, p. 114-116 — the rita and the cult, 
1 16-1 18 — the incantations and hymns, 118 — the fire-cult, 
119 — the soma-cult, 120 — the Rig-veda the hjmin-book 
of the fire cult, 121-123 — the deities ritualistic entities, 
123-125 — Indra, 125 — ^the sacrifice the end in itself, 126 — 
popular religion, 127 — Ritualistic Henotheism, 128-130 — 
an abstract imiversal Deity 129 — ^philosophic Monism, 
130— doctrine of the Upanishads, 131 — appreciation of 
the Upanishads, I32ff — Bibliography, 134. 

Franklin Edgerton, Ph.D. 

VI. BUDDHISM 135 

Contrast of Buddhism with Brahmanism, their common 
basis, p. 135-137 — the languages of Buddhism, the Pali 
literature, 137-139 — Buddhism thoroughly Hindu, 139 — 
in its three fimdamental doctrines, (i) Pessimism, 140 — 
(2) Transmigration and Karma, 141-144 — (3) Salvation, 
Nirvana, 144-157 — the Buddhist doctrine of the Buddha, 
his life, I47f — of the Congregation, 148 — of the Law, and 
the Four Noble Truths, 150-152 — the ethics of Bud- 
dhism, 153-155 — Buddhism and Christianity, I56f — 
Jainism, I57ff — its origin, its asceticism, 157-159 — its 
present condition and Hterature, 159 — Bibliography, 1 60, 

Franklin Edgerton, Ph.D. 

VII. BRAHMANISM AND HINDUISM 161 

Brahmanism, the old Vedic religion enlarged by adoption 
of popular ceremonies, p. 161-163 — caste, 163-166— the 
Brahman caste, 166 — the outcasts, i67f — ^Hinduism, its 
definition, 168-170 — the sect of ^iva, 170-171 — his con- 
sort Parvati, 172 — Vishnu, 172 — Krishna, 173 — identifi- 

4 



CONTENTS 

cation with Vishnu, 174 — essential monotheism of 
Hinduism, 175 — the worship, 176 — intellectual basis: 
pessimism, transmigration, salvation, 176 — the "way of 
knowledge" and the "way of works," 177 — the doctrine 
of bhakti, 178 — syncretizing tendencies, 178-181 — sum- 
mary, 181 — BibUography, 182. 

Franklin Edgerton, Ph.D. 
VIII ZOROASTRIANISM ,.. 183 

The Parsis, or Fire-Worshipers'of India, p. 183 — the three 
conspicuous features of their reUgion, 183-186 — 2k)roaster 
and his preaching, 186 — the spread of his reUgion, 187 — 
the origin of the Parsi community, 188-190 — the Zoro- 
astrian Hterature, Avesta, Gathas, etc., 190 — the discov- 
ery and study of the Avesta, 1 91-193 — the theology, 
Ahuramazda, 193 — duaHsm the Evil Spirit, 194-196—- 
the archangels, 196-199 — the arch-demons, 199 — man in 
his relation to these two spheres, 200 — teleology, 201-203 
— ^the good deeds, a pastoral reUgion, 203-205 — the pre- 
Zoroastrian reUgion, 205-207 — Zoroaster, his life and 
doctrine, 207ff — Bibliography, 210, 

Roland G. Kent, Ph.D. 

IX. MOHAMMEDANISM 2n 

Sources of the study, p. 211 — life of Mohammed, 211- 
213 — ^his mission religious and poUtical, spread of Islam, 
213-215 — the problem of the reUgion, 215 — Arabia and 
the Arabs, 216-218 — Mohanmied's monotheism, 218- 
221 — ^his early sincerity, first converts, 221 — the Hejira 
and his later development, 222 — foimder of a Pan- 
Arabic empire, his death, 223 — definition of Islam, 
cUmax of earUer revelation, 224 — ^the Koran, 225-227 — 
an unsystematic book, open to variety of interpretations, 
227 — the Sunnites and Shi'ites, 228 — rites of Islam, 
229ff — prayer, 229-^fasting, Ramadan, 230 — the Haj, 
231-234 — its primitive origin, 234-236 — ^the poor tax, 
236 — the CaUphate, theoretical union of Church and 
State, 237-239 — simpUcity of doctrines, 239 — of ethics, 
240— future of Islam, 24iff — BibUography, 243, 
Morris Jastrow, Jr., Ph.D., LL.D. 

X. THE RELIGION OF GREECE 244 

General characteristics: absence of fixed institutions, 
freedom of Greek reUgion, p. 244-249— ^-pomp and joyous- 
ness of the reUgion, 249f — the darker side, 250 — reUgious- 
ness of the Greeks, 252 — importance of the study, 253- 
255 — its earUer neglect, 255 — increased knowledge of the 
reUgion, archaeology, the JSgean civilization, 256-260 — 
the .^gean reUgion, 260-264 — ^its environment and 
influence on the mainland, 265-267 — ^prehistoric reUgion 
of the mainland, animism, polytheism, gradual condensa- 

5 



CONTENTS 

tion, 267-270 — origin of the Greek gods, original fetish- 
ism, 270-273 — ^primitive Pelasgian behefs and practices, 
274-278 — oriental influences, 278 — the Hellenic invasion, 
279 — the Olympians, 280-282 — the Homeric poems and 
the Olympian system, 282-287 — the Homeric hell, 287- 
289 — ^the mystery cults, 29off — the Dionysiac cult, 290 — 
Orphic mysticism, 291-293 — its influence, 293-295 — the 
Eleusinian mysteries, 295-297 — religion in Athens in 5th 
and 4th centuries, 2985 — the philosophical protest, 30a- 
302 — Plato, 302-304 — religion in Hellenistic and Roman 
ages, 304ff — failure of Greek ideals, 305-307 — ^personal 
rehgion, religious commimities, foreign cults, 307-310 — 
immortality, deification of men, 310-312 — Gnosticism, 
312 — philosophical refinement, 313 — Bibliography, 314. 

Walter Woodburn Hyde, Ph.D. 

XI. THE RELIGION OF THE ROMANS 316 

Four epochs of Roman religious experience, p. 316-319 — 
the primitive characteristics: magic, 319— -dread of 
nature, 320 — the numina, 321-323 — Nvmia, 323 — gods of 
the Roman state, 324-326 — ^impersonal individuahties, 
326 — the traditional rites, 327-330 — importation of other 
Italian gods, 330-332 — the triad of Jupiter, Juno and 
Minerva, 332 — ^adoption of Greek cults, 332 — Greek 
anthropomorphism and rites, 332-334 — depression of the 
Punic Wars, introduction of Magna Mater, 334-336 — 
degeneration of rehgion, 336 — religious philosophies, 337 
— ^the official religion, 338-340 — revival of rehgion under 
Augustus, the Olympians, Jupiter as omnipotent father, 
340-342 — ^introduction of emperor- worship, 342 — ^moral 
insufficiency of the religion, 342 — cult the expression of its 
genius, its final failure, 343 — BibHography, 344, 

George Depue Hadzsits, Ph.D. 

XII. THE RELIGION OF THE TEUTONS 345 

Definitions, p. 345 — ^Teutonic dualism, cosmic concep- 
tions, the giants, 346f — ^advent of the gods, 347ff — the 
Noms, dwarfs, etc., 249 — the cosmic divisions, 350-352 — 
the gods, 352ff— Wodan, 353— Thor, 354-35^— Tyr, 356 
Loki, 357 — other deities, 358 — the cult, 3596? — sacrifice, 
359^ — prayer, 360 — ^magic, temples, idols, 361 — escha- 
tology, Valhall, 361 — end of the world, 362 — Bibliog- 
raphy, 363. 

Amandus Johnson, Ph.D. 

XIII. EARLY CHRISTIANITY 364 

The three stages of the subject ; the Gospel of Jesus, 3645 
— repentance, the Kingdom of Heaven, 364-366 — ^Jesus' 
place in his own Gospel, 366 — the Gospel preached by the 
6 



CONTENTS 

Apostles, 367ff — their doctrine of the resurrection of Jesus, 
of Him as Messiah and Saviour, 367 — the problem of the 
Christian experience of salvation from sin, 368 — its mani- 
festations, 369 — testimony of Mozoomdar, 370 — of 
Ignatius, 371 — the Day of Pentecost, 372 — ^various phases 
of the conception of salvation, 373 — doctrine of the Spirit, 
374 — of the sacrificial death of Christ, 374 — spiritual 
phenomena of the eariy Church, 375 — worship, baptism, 
the Eucharist, 376-379 — spiritual gifts and their disci- 

Eline, 379 — organization of the Church, prophets, deacons 
ishops, elders, 380-382 — break with Judaism, 382 — 
Paul, 383 — doctrine of the resurrection, 384 — of the 
person of Jesus, 385f — the Gospel among the Gentiles, 
386ff — contact with current systems of religion and 
philosophy, Philo, Hermetic literature, Alexandrian 
philosophy, 386-389 — Gnosticism, 389 — reactions, 389- 
393 — ideas of the sacraments, 393-395 — of the Church, 
395 — summary, 397 — Bibliography, 398. 

William Romaine Newbold, Ph.D. 

XIV. MEDIEVAL CHRISTIANITY 399 

Characteristics of the Church of the Middle Ages: 
elaborate and unified organization, ignorance of the laws 
of nature, superiority to the State, p. 399ff — the organiza- 
tion of the Church in a half-converted world tended to 
formality, 400 — the danger counterbalanced by monasti- 
cism, standing for spiritual things, 400-402 — and existing 
alongside the secular life, 401-403 — its contributions to 
civilization, 404 — its democratic character, 404-407 — 
recognition of women, 407 — its elasticity in producing 
and including various types of religious experience, 408 — 
final conventionalization of monasticism, Francis of 
Assisi, 409 — the Church 's authority unrivalled, resiiltant 
liberty of opinion, 410-412 — religion part of every-day 
life, 412-414 — conception of the imiverse as dependent 
upon arbitrary forces, demons, 414 — the saints as patrons, 
415— magic, 416 — ^identity of Church and State, 4i7ff — 
divine superiority of the Church, 418-421 — a check to the 
luilimited sovereignty of the State, 421 — its social and 
economic control of life, 422 — difference of modem con- 
ditions, 423 — Bibliography, 424. 

Arthur C. Rowland, Ph.D. 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST 
AND PRESENT 

CHAPTER I 

PRIMITIVE RELIGIONS 

BY FRANK G. SPECK 

Before undertaking the study, brief as it may be, of 
primitive religions, or more exactly, the religions of primi- 
tive man, we must accept the broadest conceivable defini- 
tion of the term, one which defines religion as that 
which expresses in life the relationship between man 
and the supernatural realm. We need a definition of 
this broad character if we intend to analyze and discuss 
the various types of philosophy, the rites of worship and 
the beliefs expressing the inter-activity between man and 
the supernatural beings, which play such an important 
part in the mental life of so-called savages. We shall 
proceed then, recognizing the idea that the fetish worship 
of the West Coast African negroes, the universalism of 
the Algonquian and Iroquois Indians, the demonism 
of the Eskimo, the ancestor worship of the South African 
Zulu, as well as that of the Chinese, are as much the 
manifestations of religion in the real sense as are the 
phenomena of the more advanced types — what we may 
term Messianic types because of the importance of the 
semi-divine revealer personage in them. Some idea may 
be gained of the astonishing diversity of the field when 
one realizes that, for instance, in North America alone 
one encounters several hundred different native languages 
and most of these are the avenues of expression for as 

9 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

many varieties of religious belief and practice, while 
again in Africa, Australia, Oceania and Asia, types of 
religion are about as numerous as the tribes themselves. 
Is it any wonder, then, that until present-day methods 
of analysis, classification and definition are introduced 
into the study of primitive religions the attitude of the 
student is as yet that of the pioneer classifier of data in 
a new science? 

In dealing with a subject so bewilderingly diffuse, I 
propose to systematize by presenting first some discussion 
of primitive philosophy and mythology, then to touch 
upon the present status of the doctrines of animism, 
naturism, totemism, fetishism, the taboo, and primitive 
ethics as religious phenomena, then to give a discussion 
of the culture-hero concept with a concrete original illus- 
tration of the same from a primitive tribe in America. 
It is rather unfortunate, considering our limitations, that 
before passing to a concrete presentation of what primi- 
tive religion actually is, we shall have to give attention 
to fallacious concepts regarding the life of primitive man 
in general. Unfortunately again, he who speaks of the 
philosophical concepts of the so-called savage must adopt 
an apologetic attitude by proving, if indeed he can, that 
the savage has any philosophy at all. 

How surprising then it must seem to the uninformed 
to become aware for the first time, that in the conception 
of savage mankind the idea of evolution in nature, for 
instance, is an exceedingly old one. Quoting material 
presented by Dr. Kroeber, we find in Polynesian mythol- 
ogy, as an illustration, that a series of origins by birth 
is an explanation of cosmic features.^ In Samoan, fire 
and water married and begat earth, rocks and trees. In 
Hawaiian mythology a protracted period of primeval 
night gave birth to eight periods which were literally 

*A. L. Kroeber * Inheritance by Magic/ American Anthropolo- 
gist, vol. i8, No. I (1916). 

10 



PRIMITIVE RELIGIONS 

born from each other. In the first, appeared worms, 
corals, shells, seaweed, kelp and grass; in the second, 
insects and birds; in the third, trees, jelly fish, fishes and 
whales; in the fourth, turtles and cultivable plants; in 
the fifth, pigs and human arts; in the sixth, mice and 
porpoises; in the seventh, visions, sound, thoughts and 
sayings; in the eighth, man. Among the California In- 
dians, Solitude and Emptiness appeared first in the cos- 
mic series; Being and Existence then found themselves 
there. 

In American Indian mythologies, almost universally, 
the germ of the evolutionary scheme is apparent in the 
frequent reference to pre-existing times when men were 
animals and became transformed, through accidental 
stages, into their present-day form. One might safely 
say, indeed, that the idea of an out-and-out creation of 
matter is rather inconsistent with American Indian nature 
philosophy. The idea of a natural unfolding of stages 
of life is certainly the dominant one here. In fact, the 
human mind appears to have employed only two idea 
processes in explaining to itself the origin of the world, 
the idea of evolution and the idea of creation. Both are 
presumably derived from analogies of concrete events wit- 
nessed in nature : the process of birth and organic growth 
and the process of construction by human hands. So in 
the mythology of many savage peoples, the evolutionary 
idea of growth has equalled in strength that of absolute 
creation, and we have the apparent paradox that the 
savage is more scientific in his way of thinking about 
origins than is the civilized philosopher of more recent 
times. It required, as it seems, the influence of a Semitic 
people to turn the modern world's thought into thinking 
of creational origin. The primitive pattern of thought 
persists even into the more advanced religions, for there 
is a striking quasi-scientific tone in early Japanese Shinto 
mythology, in early Greek cosmogony, in the narratives 

II 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

of the Australian aborigines, while even the Hindu con- 
cept of transmigration embodies a similar explanatory 
thought. 

The ethnologist is moreover often obliged to claim 
dignified consideration for his field of research by bring- 
ing forth data showing how the concept of the magical, 
even the immaculate conception and birth of a culture 
hero, or of a mythical world-transformer, is an age-old 
concept in the primitive world, how the fulfilment of an 
altruistic mission during his life, and his final departure, 
with the promise of an ultimate return, all figure as 
episodes in the career of a mythical personage whose 
attributes may, in part, even be compared with those of 
Christ, Moses, Hercules, Achilles, Balder, and also, in 
places, with those of Barbarossa and Arthur of the Round 
Table. What could be more bewildering to the student 
than to find, for instance, in a typically indigenous set of 
American Indian myths, many elements which are cog- 
nate in substance with the episode of the disobedience 
of Eve, the world Flood, the Ark, and the like. 

Not from the mythology of one American tribe, but 
from the traditions of many could be quoted specimen 
versions in which a disobedient virgin gives birth by 
magical impregnation to a being who at an early age de- 
velops the characteristics of a miracle-worker. Then, 
and after, in the same mythical hero-cycle, occur episodes 
which parallel in a crude but significant fashion the epi- 
sodes of the more modern Messianic versions, if we may 
refer to the versions of Christianity and Hinduism in this 
category. We have the manifestation of altruism on the 
part of the hero personage in behalf of human beings, 
the destruction of existing monsters and personified evils, 
the transformation of objects in Nature by means of 
miraculous power, and, finally, most significantly, the 
departure of the hero to another world, after leaving his 
promise to return again in some future time of need to 

12 



PRIMITIVE RELIGIONS 

benefit his people. Can anyone fail to stand and marvel 
before an array of evidence of this sort, testifying to the 
antiquity of the concept of the supernatural deliverer in 
the realm of primitive thought ! We need not indeed halt 
our comparisons with these correlations. To every stu- 
dent of American Indian mythology instances of the oc- 
currence in America of the following roughly assembled 
list of classical and old Testament mythical motives are 
very familiar. We have parallels for the narrative of 
Joshua stopping the course of the sun, Jonah and the 
whale, Lot's wife, the Potiphar story, Cain and Abel 
(or the murder between twins personifying good and 
evil), and the Flood. To cite a few instances from the 
classical field one might also mention correspondences in 
America with such tales as the animal foster-mother 
(Romulus and Remuis), Pandora, Achilles, O'rpheus, 
Prometheus (not only fire being obtained by theft in 
American m3rthology, but the sun, summer and tobacco 
among the tales of the eastern tribes), the world fire, 
Atlantis or Medea, and the Magic Flight, Phaeton, the 
Symplegades, and many more for which quotations might 
be cited from published American collections. Besides 
these, could be mentioned a number of correspondences 
with familiar European nursery tales, such as Jack and 
the Bean Stalk, the Abandoned Children, Big Claus and 
Little Claus, the Werwolf, the race between the hare and 
the tortoise, Loki, in Scandinavian, Tom Thumb, and the 
Roc. It is difficult to resist the temptation of discussing 
at this point whether, like Graebner and Ratzel, we may 
interpret the occurrence of these parallels as being due to 
an early process of culture diffusion or whether like 
Spencer, Tylor, Lubbock, Frazier and Lang, we are to 
repose confidence in the familiar theories of * independent 
origin ' and * fundamental mental unity.' So much for 
what time permits us to mention regarding primitive 
man's philosophy of nature. 

13 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

Savage religion is, to proceed to another topic, no less 
rich in forms of worship than in ideas of philosophy. 
Through a maze of practices in idolatry, human, animal 
and object sacrifice, cannibalism, invocation, expiation 
and bribery, we gain an insight into the attitude of wor- 
ship of the savage, which might lead us, as it has some 
others, into the feeling that the worship of primitive man 
is the outgrowth of the emotion of fear. While fear is 
unquestionably an element in the religious activity of 
primitive man at large, I feel that it would be unfair to 
exclude from consideration instances evidencing higher 
feelings, such as those of gratitude, of reverence and 
affection for supernatural beings, occurring in the wor- 
ship of some primitive peoples. Savage worship is at 
bottom characterized by emotions, so far as we know 
them, remarkably like those underlying modern worship. 
In the primitive tribe we find, moreover, the worshippers 
varying in the intensity of their devotional activities. 
Some are deeply religious most of the time, others are 
intermittently religious, and still others are indifferently 
religious. It is undoubtedly true, however, that, if we 
may assume the sense of an average feeling in respect to 
religion, the savage is in the long run rather more re- 
ligious than the civilized man, for the former realizes 
his greater dependence upon the attitude which the super- 
natural beings maintain toward him than does the latter 
who has his sense of spiritual independence magnified by 
the knowledge of his mechanical powers. 

The rites and forms of worship of primitive man 
often exhibit an elaborate and complex religious con- 
scio'usness. Through prayers, through sacrifices, through 
emulatory dances and ritualized ceremonies, influence is 
sought with the supernatural beings. The rites of wor- 
ship of primitive groups have often been regarded by 
speculators as activities to be classed in the very lowest 
nascent stages of human culture. While many of them 

14 



PRIMITIVE RELIGIONS 

may be simple and irrational in concept, historically they 
must be as ancient and in many cases as much the product 
of specialized development as the modern types of re- 
ligion. Cannibalism, for instance, might be casually 
thought, at first blush, to be a nascent activity. An in- 
vestigation of cannibalism in the region of fetish worship 
in Central Africa shows on the contrary that this rite is 
the result of a long process, its inception capable of being 
traced back through acts of sacrifice to a starting point 
in the concept of expiation. Cannibal tribes frequently 
have derived their craving for human flesh through an 
earlier custom of eating, with ceremonial motives, the 
sacrifices intended for deities. In some of the most highly 
developed ritualistic regions of Africa such sacrifices 
consist of human beings. The connection here is obvi- 
ous. Sacrifice in itself may be in accord with a deeply 
religious consciousness since it provides gifts, acceptable 
in proportion to their importance, to the supernatural 
beings. Cannibalism then may in some regions be viewed 
as an evolved rite. 

In the primitive world ceremonies of a religious 
character play a part in most of the current events of 
life. Pre-natal and birth rites, ceremonial procedures 
at the period of adolescence, at initiation into certain 
secret organizations, at the occasions of marriage, death 
and burial, characterize the passage of life among savages 
from before the cradle until after the grave. Assuredly 
the savage impresses us as an essentially very religious 
creature in so far as his ceremonial obligations toward 
the beings of the supernatural world are concerned. The 
great play of fancy in such ceremonies, bringing into life 
symbolism in art, music and dancing, overshadows the 
crudities of superstition and the acts which would be con- 
sidered profane and obscene in civilized communities. 

It is not within the legitimate scope of this paper to 
deal extensively with the various theories of the origin of 

IS 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

religion, for although primitive religions may be said to 
be religions of an early type, there is nothing to warrant 
the critical student in going so far as to fall into the 
pitfall of assuming that even the crudest religions with 
which we are acquainted through ethnology are in any 
sense near to any truly original form of religious life. 
They are a comparatively late and advanced product of 
religious growth, with a complexity corresponding to that 
of Egyptian, early Semitic or Indian religion, which is 
developmental instead of primary. Having exonerated 
ourselves then from the thankless burden of dealing with 
religious origins, we may relieve our minds by attempting 
the legitimate and more profitable task of discussing the 
leading concepts which characterize the religions of primi- 
tive tribes, all of whom, in this age of the globe, have 
ascended to their own variously evolved states of being. 

ANIMISM 

If any one concept could be regarded as fundamental 
to both primitive belief and religious practice it would 
seem to be that of animism. Animism is perhaps the most 
elementary and universal concept in primitive religious 
life. The term, while it does not necessarily define primi- 
tive religion in general, does at least temporarily char- 
acterize it It is, as Tylor asserted many years ago,^ the 
groundwork of the philosophy of religion from that of 
savages up to that of civilized man. The doctrine of 
animism as a concept of spirits may, to be sure, afford 
only a bare and meagre definition of religion at its mini- 
mum, but where the root is the branches will generally 
be produced. Tylor defines animism as including the 
belief in souls and in a future state, in controlling deities 
and subordinate spirits ; these doctrines practically result- 
ing in some kind of active worship. 

*E. B. Tylor Primitive Culture, London (1903) vol. I. 

16 



PRIMITIVE RELIGIONS 

Tylor and Jevons derived the animistic concept from 
the transitional character of beliefs regarding the soul 
(made conscious to the primitive mind through dreams), 
and those concerning supernatural spirits. The doctrine 
is based upon an assumption of primitive man's inabihty 
to distinguish the animate from the inanimate. Spencer 
modifies Tylor's original concept by denying the latter 
assumption, showing, by certain examples, that since 
animals can distinguish the animate from the inanimate 
it is an injustice to attribute a lower stage of discriminat- 
ing intelligence to man. Durkheim again treats animism 
critically and recasts Tylor's and Spencer's later views by 
creating two categories of thought, naturism, which " ad- 
dresses itself to the phenomena of nature, either the great 
cosmic forces, such as winds, rivers, stars or the sky, 
etc., or else the objects of various sorts which cover the 
surface of the earth, such as plants, animals, rocks, etc.," 
and animism, " which has spiritual beings as its object, 
spirits, souls, geniuses, demons, divinities, properly so- 
called, animated and conscious agents like men . ... . 
ordinarily not visible to human eyes." For some thinkers 
animism is the earlier phase of thought, naturism being 
a derived secondary form, and for others " the nature 
cult was the point of departure for religious evolution." 
So it appears, in regard to animism itself, as elementary 
and fundamental as the concept is as an original starting 
point for religious thought, that the several points of 
view concerning both its definition and its place in re- 
ligious growth render the position of one who attempts to 
deal dogmatically with the animistic doctrine open to criti- 
cism until the contested questions have been settled. 

Later researches, however, show animism to be more 
than the older conception embraced, that it is based on the 
concept of magical power believed to be inherent in the 
phenomena of nature whether animate or inanimate. A 
more recent characterization of animism has been given 
2 17 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

by Doctor Boas. He says : ^ ** The fundamental concept 
bearing on the religious life of the individual is the belief 
in the existence of magic power, which may intluence the 
life of man and which in turn might be influenced by 
human activity. In this sense magic power must be under- 
stood as the wonderful qualities which are believed to 
exist in objects, animals, men, spirits and deities and 
which are superior to the natural qualities of man. This 
idea of magic power is one of the fundamental concepts 
which occur among all Indian tribes. It is what is called 
manito by the Algonquian tribes ; wakanda by the Siouan 
tribes, orenda by the Iroquois.'* By acquiring varying 
degrees of this supernatural force the various deities be- 
lieved in by the American Indians are thought to derive 
their power. Objects in nature which are conceived also 
to be imbued with some of this spiritual force also come 
to be classified, by the same means, as incipient deities. 
This stage, called the pre-animistic stage, in which rites 
are addressed to impersonal forces has been classed by 
some religious theorists as one of the earliest phases of 
human religion. Human beings who through the pos- 
session of magic power become able to impress their 
fellows with their ability to work miracles in healing dis- 
ease or in controlling the action of spirits are likewise 
regarded as possessing some of this supernatural force. 
Hence, we find in all primitive groups individuals to 
whom are attributed supernatural powers who are known 
as medicine men, magicians, witch-doctors or, more tech- 
nically, as Shamans. Shamanism then may be said to 
be a practise based on the use of supernatural force. 

TOTEMISM 

Totemism has, like animism, figured prominently in 
the classification of elementary religious concepts. A 

' Article 'Religion/ Handbook of The American Indians, Bulle- 
tin 30, Bureau of American Ethnology. 

18 



PRIMITIVE RELIGIONS 

better understanding of the great diversity of totemic 
phenomena in various parts of the world has left students 
today in a more critical frame of mind, with a less definite 
feeling as to what totemism really is than they had a 
decade ago. Tylor, Morgan, Hill-Tout, Robertson Smith, 
Haddon, Frazer, Lang, McLennan and Durkheim have 
within the last thirty years elaborated various explanatory 
theories which, on account of their attempted universal 
application, have been superseded in more recent years by 
those of Boas, Goldenweiser, Rivers, and other philoso- 
phers whose method has been more inductive. 

Goldenweiser, allowing for the cases, which are en- 
countered frequently, where the religious side of the to- 
temic complex is nothing, ventures the definition : " To- 
temism is the tendency of definite social units (bound 
together through descent) to become associated with 
objects and symbols of emotional value.'' * 

Totemism implies the association of so many cultural 
traits which are not strictly concerned with religion that 
it never embraces the whole of religion, even when, as in 
the case of Polynesia, it has developed into a type of re- 
ligion. For instance, in various regions of the globe we 
find the concept more characteristically based on the 
association of social units with belief in descent, taboo, 
dramatization of myths, ceremonies to multiply the to- 
temic animal, with prerogatives in the ownership of 
myths, songs, dances, family crests, and the like. Most 
comm.only associated with totemism, however, is exogamy. 
This is the prohibition of marriage within certain social 
divisions whose members regard themselves as relatives 
through maternal or paternal descent, as the case may be, 
from a common ancestor generally of the animal or plant 
kingdom. The explanation of this identity of social 
group and animal has been attempted by theorists in 

*A, A. Goldenweiser, 'Totemism, an Analytical Study/ Journal 
of American Folk-Lore, vol. 23, No. 88 (1916), p. 275. 

19 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

several ways. For instance, Haddon believed that totem- 
ism originated from the idea that groups of people 
developed out of an earlier stage of their life when cer- 
tain animals were hunted for food, into an attitude of 
reverence toward the creature and so came to abstain from 
killing or eating it Frazer in a later work suggested 
that the institution originated in an economic arrange- 
ment by which the various clans contributed to each 
other's support by refraining from killing certain animals 
in order to multiply each other's game supply, and con- 
sequently developing a certain religious attitude toward 
the animal so protected. And there are other theories. 

The concept is much too varied to accept any of these 
theories, none of which reconstructs any absolutely satis- 
factory universal theory of origin. The best recent 
authorities show that totemism must have started from 
many different origins in different regions and developed 
certain comparable characteristics through a process of 
convergence. It would be unwise, even if it were possible 
in this paper, to discuss further the question of the origin 
of totemism, and it seems inadvisable to prolong a dis- 
cussion of the religious side of so complex and subjective 
a concept. 

FETISHISM 

The belief that all things in Nature are animate and 
that they possess volition, immortality and other mysteri- 
ous attributes has developed in the mind of primitive 
man an attitude of reverence and worship which students 
of religion denote by the term fetishism, a derivative from 
the Portuguese feitigo, a charm, sorcery. Fetishism is 
the doctrine that objects, either natural or artificial, 
possess an essential magical power which converts them 
into creatures capable of responding to acts of influence 
such as invocation, sacrifice, flattery, bribery, supplica- 
tion, imitative magic and the like. Accordingly, various 
objects in Nature, which appeal to the imagination of 



PRIMITIVE RELIGIONS 

superstitious human beings either by their curious appear- 
ance, it may be through dreams or visions, or through 
supposedly supernatural associations, become regarded 
as abodes of such animce. Such objects are cherished as 
material helpers, guides or protectors, or are held in 
fear as malevolent forces which have to be appeased by 
the various means of cajolery which man since time im- 
memorial has known and practiced to deceive supernatural 
beings in his own favor. Fetishes may be acquired by 
individuals, by groups, or by nations for the promotion 
of their welfare. Fetishes may be small portable objects 
of every imaginable sort, or they may occur as artificial 
objects made with every device of ingenuity and art that 
man is capable of employing. In the former class we 
learn of such fetishes as bones, stones, fossils, feathers, 
sticks plain or decorated, hair, roots, berries, seeds, parts 
of animals and human beings, in fact anything, no matter 
how insignificant in itself, which has in the owner's mind 
at least some symbolic connection with occult power. 
Such minor fetishes are frequently known as charms, 
amulets, talismans, and luck-pieces. And indeed we of 
to-day have not entirely outgrown their use. Fetishes 
are often large and elaborate artifacts, representations or 
images which have become generally known as idols. The 
phenomenon of idolatry or image worship is thus a close 
associate of fetishism and so, also, is sacrifice. Africa is 
generally regarded as the region of the globe where fetish- 
ism has been most elaborately developed. Here it consti- 
tutes the greater part of religion, its devotees being or- 
ganized into many fetish cults whose power is often of 
a political as well as of a religious nature.^ 

TABOO 

Another manifestation of the primitive religious com- 
plex is taboo, a word of Polynesian origin. The term is 

* R. H. Nassau, Fetichism in West Africa, N. Y., 1904. 

21 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

applied to an interdiction belonging to or placed upon a 
person, place, day, name, act, thought or any conceivable 
thing and idea which is thereby rendered sacred. In the 
case of objects, communication with the tabooed thing 
is forbidden under ordinary circumstances to all except a 
few persons having special privileges. Taboo may have 
a negative and a positive side; the former, denoting re- 
ligious prohibition, is the more conspicuous in primitive 
life. In either aspect the term may be applied to definite 
periods of the life of the individual in connection with 
important events. It operates by governing the regula- 
tions observed by boys and girls at puberty; by parents 
before and after the birth of a child (couvade) ; by rela- 
tives after the decease of a person ; by hunters and fisher- 
men in their occupations ; by shamans, doctors, or magi- 
cians desiring power to cure the sick, to prophesy or to 
conjure; and by novices about to enter secret societies. 
Such are only a few of the instances where taboo operates. 
The typical negative prohibitions which every student first 
associates with the taboo proper, however, consist in 
abstinence from hunting, fishing, war, women, sleep, cer- 
tain kinds of work, and so forth, but especially in 
refraining from eating certain foods. The latter prohibi- 
tion may be applied permanently in the life of an indi- 
vidual or a group in regard to the totemic animal, and it 
often applies similarly to the killing of certain animals. 
•In primitive society the taboo of name mention and the 
taboo of intercourse are very common. The prohibition 
frequently covers the mention of the name of the dead, 
the mention of one's own name, the right of addressing 
the mother-in-law directly or vice versa, and the pro- 
hibition of intercourse between fathers-in-law and daugh- 
ters-in-law as well. 

Thus it may be seen that taboo is an important aspect 
of the phenomena of religion, influencing primitive ethi- 
cal and social behaviour in general to an extent that makes 

22 



PRIMITIVE RELIGIONS 

it in some regions as broad a concept as that of religion 
itself. In Polynesia, particularly, the taboo was largely 
a method of government and the fear of retribution from 
supernatural sources was the direct cause of obedience 
to it. 

PRIMITIVE ETHICS 

Thus far in our discussion it must have been apparent 
to all that the question of the moral influence of reHgion 
upon primitive life has been left unmentioned. The rea- 
son for this is that we are dealing with primitive, not 
with civilized religions. The ethical characteristics of 
primitive man's religion are indeed as diverse in their 
types as are the ethnical types themselves. If, however, 
we separate, by a somewhat arbitrary line of division, the 
sphere of primitive life from that of civilized life, we 
find that in the primitive world relationship with the su- 
pernatural beings does not seem to involve the considera- 
tion of morals in the least. In the religious systems 
prevailing throughout primitive America, Asia, Africa, 
and Australia there occur very few signs to indicate a 
belief in retribution during the soul's future life, for 
the deeds done in this life. As ubiquitous as the belief 
in a heaven of some sort may be in the primitive world at 
large, the absence of the concept of reward and punish- 
ment for behavior during life leaves the matter of ethical 
control entirely outside the pale of religion. Custom is 
thus left to control community as well as individual be- 
havior. One could indeed define most primitive types 
of religion as being ceremonial systems of non-ethical 
philosophy and worship. This is a very thorough-going 
differential feature. It throws into glaring contrast the 
primitive as against the more advanced Messianic types 
of religion, and again leaves us to struggle with a theory 
as to whether the Messiah concept would have been pro- 
duced independently by a process of gradual thought evo- 

23 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

lution or whether it is to be accounted for by the hypoth- 
esis of supernatural revelation. 

We do indeed find instances in the primitive world 
of the concept of sin, but sin is in such cases merely the 
violation of a taboo or an arbitrary custom, finding its 
settlement in an immediate reaction by the community 
or by the performance of a ceremony of expiation in- 
tended to placate the supernatural force which has been 
offended. It is only among the Eskimo that any cere- 
monial atonement comparable to that of modern religions 
is required for a sin, and atonement there curiously 
enough is obtained by confession addressed to an anthro- 
pomorphic goddess, the Mistress of the Sea Mammals. 
In the case of these people there exist a number of arbi- 
trary restrictions the transgression and subsequent con- 
cealment of which constitute sin. Such restrictions con- 
cern food and work. It is, for example, a transgression 
to perform certain work after a seal has been killed, or 
after a death has occurred; no work on caribou skin is 
allowed until sea ice has formed, and none on seal skins 
after the sea ice has commenced to melt. An elaborate 
code of social punishment also exists in primitive Africa 
where a highly organized system of legislation is, and 
has been for ages, in operation, though as a social-eco- 
nomic not a religious element of culture. Here again is 
something of a paradox in the fact that the savage is a 
creature of social self-control more strictly than is the 
civilized man who requires belief in a religious code 
threatening eternal punishment or reward for the mainte- 
nance of his good behavior. 

There remains, accordingly, the impression in the mind 
of every thinker who studies the relationship between 
ethics and religion, that a tremendous gap lies between 
the primitive and the modern types of religion. Even 
allowing for great diversities in primitive tribal religions 
it may be generally asserted as true that the primitive 

24 



PRIMITIVE RELIGIONS 

types are characteristically not ethical, since their systems 
do not embody ethical codes. Apparently this is due to 
the fact that the savage's conception of the superior beings 
rates them as too important, too egoistic to be concerned 
at all with what good or bad men may do to each other. 
This lack of association between religion and the control 
of behavior in life is so marked that we may generally 
regard the gap as the dividing line between the primitive 
and the advanced. Classifying the primitive types as non- 
ethical, non-retributive systems of philosophy we might 
attempt to account for the reason why the modern creeds 
instigated by Messianic personages, such as Moses, Christ, 
Mohammed or Buddha, bring the doctrines of religion to 
bear upon life as a moral power. Coordinating results 
in these speculations, it would seem that where primitive 
religions are strictly non-ethical the Messiah concept is 
also lacking. Should one attempt to claim that the cul- 
ture hero or transformer might in the process of time 
have developed into a Messiah-personage, he would have 
to confront the difficulty of explaining why field investi- 
gations among savages have failed to disclose evidences 
to show where culture heroes, shamans or semi-super- 
natural figures have metamorphosed directly into 
such Messiah-personages. The chief function of the 
Messiah being, as we have seen, to p>reach the doc-i 
trine of ethics as a part of religion, we cannot point 
to cases where a culture hero or mythical trans- 
former does appear in any such capacity. The prob- 
lem still remains, however, whether or not this con- 
clusion may be due to lack of information from certain 
regions of the primitive world and whether future re- 
search will bring forth material showing how the primi- 
tive concept could develop into the concept of a Messiah. 
We must be content as yet with investigating the field 
to secure material covering the gaps of our knowledge 

25 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

before we can hope to draw safe conclusions on a problem 
so greatly involving the comprehension of primitive 
man's history, as well as an understanding of his mind. 

THE CULTURE HERO 

The culture hero or transformer concept, which has 
already been frequently mentioned, is another concept 
as fundamental in the primitive world as that of animism. 
Particularly in America, where we have critical and 
abundant material collected from many regions, can the 
culture hero character be studied with advantage, so we 
shall use this field for drawing some concrete illustra- 
tions. The story of the so-called culture hero who gave 
the world its present shape, killing obnoxious monsters, 
giving man the arts and industries of his culture, is one 
of the most widely distributed myth-cycles on the conti- 
nent. The culture hero or transformer, if we choose 
to call him such, appears first in a period when men are 
not differentiated from animals. With the appearance 
of the hero a new historic era is ushered in and we have 
the story of how men are given their culture and sepa- 
rated from their animal kindred. The transformer teaches 
men how to kill animals, to make fire and to clothe them- 
selves, posing as a benevolent helper of mankind. But 
the same culture hero often appears in other groups of 
tales as a sly, low-principled trickster, even a marplot 
who vaingloriously thinks himself superior to all other 
beings whom he tries to deceive. Again, in the words 
of Boas,^ ** he appears as the victim of his own wiles who 
is often punished for his malevolence by the superiority 
of his intended victims. No method of warfare is too 
mean for him. No trick is too low to be resorted to pro- 
vided it helps him to reach his selfish end. Often the 
end sought for is entirely unworthy of the hero who 

"Introduction to "Traditions of the TTiompson River Indians," 
James Teit, Memoirs of the American Folk-Lore Society, 

26 



PRIMITIVE RELIGIONS 

shows such lofty altruism at other times in his career, 
for his chief aim in his baser moods is the acquisition 
of riches and women." 

It seems difficult to harmonize two such different 
aspects of the culture hero myth. Some investigators 
have tried to show that a gradual deterioration from a 
purer, earlier form of the myth explains how the more 
vulgar tales come in as additions to the old cycle of myths. 
An explanation, however, which does not necessarily in- 
volve the idea of literary degeneration would seem to be 
natural, an explanation by which the speculator would ac- 
count for the dual aspect of the culture hero concept by 
some process of evolution. To my mind we may seek 
for such an explanation by regarding the base and vulgar 
aspects of the culture-hero stories as accretions which 
have grown up around the central figure of mythology, 
like stories clustering around a point of attraction. In 
many of the tales where the culture hero frames his 
actions for the benefit of mankind he is not prompted by 
altruistic motives but only by the desire to satisfy his 
own needs. Nevertheless, these tales are often inter- 
preted as indications of an altruistic intention on the part 
of the hero. The latter attitude, however, does not 
obscure the purely egotistical motives which the hero 
possesses, because many of the changes which he accom- 
plishes for the benefit of mankind are only incidentally 
beneficial. The less the altruistic idea is developed the 
less will be the consciousness of a discrepancy between 
the tales representing the transformer as a benefactor and 
as a trickster. The higher it is developed the greater 
will be the discrepancy between these two groups of tales. 
Accordingly, we find that where the altruistic idea is 
emphasized the tales of the trickster are separated from 
the transformer tales and ascribed to another secondary 
hero. The personage of the hero character is then split 
into several parts, the one representing the high-principled 

27 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

hero, the other retaining the basic features of the trick- 
ster cycle. The higher the civilization of the tribe, natu- 
rally the sharper the line seems to be drawn between the 
culture hero and the trickster. 

Since there is a certain advantage in being able to 
refer to a specific case on this point, I should like to sum- 
marize from material gathered by myself, with which I 
am consequently more familiar, namely, the character- 
istics of the culture-hero tale as it is related by one of 
the tribes of the lower St. Lawrence region, the Penob- 
scot Indians of northern Maine."^ Bearing upon the dis- 
cussion just presented the points to be noted here are, 
the commingling of altruism with selfishness, and secondly 
the importance of mere accident in determining the char- 
acter of transformations in nature. To the Penobscot 
mind, it would seem, the incongruity of the various parts 
of the transformer myth has not been very striking, 
although there is a tendency manifested in this direction, 
in the separation of the myths into a primary and a 
secondary, profane, group by the native narrators. 

The culture hero, in the tales of the tribes of this 
region, bears the name of Gluskdbe which, literally trans- 
lated, means * The Man of Deceit,' * The Liar.' The 
term, however, is not applied in a derogatory sense for 
it implies ' one who overcomes his opponents by strategy.' 
The sections following under separate numbers are ab- 
stracts of independent recitations in the order as given, 
forming the culture-hero cycle of myths. 

Summary of the Penobscot Version of the Cul- 
ture-hero (Gluskabe) Cycle. 
I. Gluskabe's Childhood. He lives with grandmother, 
Woodchuck. He develops into a prodigious hunter as a 

'The summary presented here is arranged from part of a col- 
lection of phonetically recorded texts with translations submitted 
by the writer several years ago to the Anthropological Division of 
the Geological Survey of Canada. 

28 



PRIMITIVE RELIGIONS 

child. His grandmother prophesies a great future for 
him as the benefactor of posterity. 

2. Gluskabe deceives the Game Animals. He induces 
them to enter his game bag by lying to them, prophesying 
the end of the world. His grandmother disapproves. 
Gluskabe releases the animals from the game close. 

3. Gluskabe traps all the fish by a similar hoax. His 
grandmother reprimands him, and Gluskabe releases the 
fish. 

4. Gluskabe employs a stone canoe. He seeks the 
home of the Wind Bird. His hair is blown off by the 
force of the wind. He deceives the Wind Bird, and 
cripples him. The waters then become too calm, Glus- 
kabe is obliged to cure and restore Wind Bird, who 
properly regulates the winds of the world thereafter. 

5. Gluskabe seeks Grasshopper, the retainer of the 
world's tobacco. He steals his tobacco and seeds, be- 
stows it abroad for mankind, and punishes Grasshopper 
by giving him only a temporary supply. 

6. Gluskabe travels among the lakes and rivers of the 
north, reducing their dangers for the safety of posterity. 

7. Gluskabe discovers people suffering from thirst. 
He seeks the monster Aglebemu who withholds the 
world's water, and kills him. Then from the released 
water originates the Penobscot River, and the dying 
people, plunging into the flood, are transformed into 
various fish and amphibians. From these originate the 
present day family totemic groups. 

8. Gluskabe pursues a monster cannibal moose. 
Squatty- woman (Pukdjinskwess) attempts to hinder 
him. He escapes her. Their snowshoe footprints be- 
come imprinted in the rock. Gluskabe kills the moose. 
He transforms the moose's intestines, and his own dog 
into stone, and also his kettle, which is now Mt. Kineo. 

9. Gluskabe goes in search of the Winter Deity. He 
is overcome and frozen by Winter. 

39 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

10. Gluskabe's grandmother, during his absence, is 
plagued by Foxes. Gluskabe returns, and punishes them. 

11. Gluskabe seeks the source of Summer. He hides 
his eye leaving it in the care of the Chickadee. He 
encounters his father and his malevolent brothers. He 
undergoes a smoking test, and a gaming test, and wins 
both. 

12. Gluskabe approaches the dancers whd guard the 
Summer Fluid. He transforms two girls into toads. He 
steals the Summer Fluid, and escapes his pursuers by a 
ruse. He recovers an eye from Owl, who has stolen 
his. He then proceeds to the home of the Winter Deity 
with the Summer Fluid, and overcomes him by the heat. 

13. Gluskabe finishes his earthly mission. With his 
grandmother he departs to the immortal realm where they 
work, preparing weapons for the future world war, to 
aid posterity. 

The following three episodes are told in detached 
form as supplements to the story of the hero's career. 
They are correctly felt, in the minds of the native myth 
narrators, to be incongruous with the character of the 
main transformer episodes. 

14. Gluskabe fails to stop a Baby crying. He is de- 
feated by the Baby in a filth-eating contest. 

15. Gluskabe aids his uncle Turtle to secure women. 
Turtle projects part of himself beneath the river: this 
portion is swallowed by a fish. Gluskabe recovers it for 
him. 

16. Gluskabe aids Turtle to marry the daughter of 
Kellu, a bird chief. At the wedding- feast Turtle violates 
Gluskabe's rules and is scorched in the fire, whence origi- 
nates the Turtle's shell. Turtle tries vengeance on Glus- 
kabe. Gluskabe in payment causes Turtle to stab him- 
self. 

It seems advisable, in connection with tales like the 
preceding, since the question often arises among students 

30 



PRIMITIVE RELIGIONS 

of primitive religion, to mention a common fallacy which 
has come into vogue in literature concerning the supposed 
belief of an anthropomorphic supreme deity among the 
American Indians. The Indians are often cited as illus- 
trating the case of a primitive people paying reverence 
to a Great Spirit as a creator and controller of the world. 
No such monotheistic concept, however, does exist in 
aboriginal Indian religious beliefs in general, until the 
concept has been taught the natives by the missionaries. 
The zeal of the latter has often led them to " read in " 
their own ideas into their records, with the result that the 
great supernatural force, and oftentimes the mythical cul- 
ture-hero figures, like the one just dealt with, have been 
misconstrued through the bias of the investigator. We 
should not overlook the fact, however, that the missionaries 
have correctly understood the situation when they have 
claimed that the primitive Americans possessed a conscious- 
ness of the life after death. The soul of the individual, in 
American mythology, is generally supposed to travel to a 
spirit land resembling ours. The journey thither is be- 
lieved to be beset with many lurking dangers to be over- 
come by the soul. In some mythologies a slippery log 
has to be crossed, in others terrific precipices must be 
skirted, while in others we learn of colliding clouds 
which are to be avoided. The success of the soul in this 
journey depends largely upon good fortune, sometimes 
upon the strength of experience gained by having led a 
respectable life on earth, and sometimes upon the per- 
formance of mortuary rites by the surviving relatives. 
As describing the realm of departed spirits, the term 
" Happy Hunting Ground " seems to have been fairly well 
chosen. Life there is believed to be one of happiness and 
repletion. 

The treatment of so complex a realm of thought has 
really no natural ending, as the student will learn for 

31 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

himself if he undertakes to penetrate the Hterature of it. 
An arbitrary ending has to be made somewhere. There 
is, moreover, no single textbook to be used with implicit 
confidence as a guide. So until the time comes when 
scholars in the field of primitive religions, through inten- 
sive methods similar to those employed in classical and 
Semitic research, produce an adequate text and reference 
work, the few who stand before the panorama of the 
savage world can, I fear, do little more than surrender 
to the spectacle of its possibilities. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The beginner in this subject is recommended to consult W. I. 
Thomas, Source Book for Social Origins (University of Chicago 
Press), Part VI (Magic, Religion, Myth). An extensive bibHog- 
raphy of primitive religions is given here. E. B. Tylor, Primitive 
Culture, Vol. 2, is valuable for general material and E. Durkheim, 
The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, translated from the 
French by J. W. Swain, is useful for the more theoretical treatment 
of the whole field. 



32 



CHAPTER II 

THE EGYPTIAN RELIGION 

BY W. MAX MULLER 

Many of my readers will feel that it means an in- 
justice to the ancient Egyptians, the bearers of the highest 
civilization of the ancient Orient, to introduce their re- 
ligion directly after the sketch of the religious thinking 
of primitive peoples. I am sorry to confess that I cannot 
join any protest of these admirers of ancient Egypt. 
While I gladly agree with them in praising highly the art, 
the literature, the architecture, and many other achieve- 
ments of this remarkable nation, I must state that the 
popular overestimation of its " religious wisdom" is a 
great error. Certainly its religious thought is extremely 
interesting to students of the history of religion, who may 
see in it even the most precious bequest of ancient Egypt 
to modern science. 

This valuation rests, however, not on its philosophical 
depths, as so many admirers of Egypt think, but on the 
extremely primitive character of that ancient religion 
which makes it an inestimable source of information for 
the origin and growth of religion in general. It is an 
interesting link between the most rudimentary state of 
religious thinking and the development reached by other 
nations of the ancient western Orient. Whoever thinks 
that this skeptical valuation is incompatible with the high 
civilization of Egypt, may be reminded that the religious 
development of nations is often quite incongruous with 
their progress in other lines. Compare the low religious 
development of China, while, on the other hand, Israel, 
which could boast only of a very moderate and little 
original civilization before the dispersion among the 
3 33 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

nations, has been the leader of the whole world in re- 
ligious thought. 

Furthermore, if conservatism is a most important ele- 
ment in all religions, it is nowhere so important as in 
ancient Egypt. Its creed is not what the highly civilized 
Egyptians after 3000 B.C. might have thought out if they 
had been free to think. It is rather the bequest of their 
barbarous forefathers from fabulously ancient periods. 
These traditions of the ancestors, who must have lived 
at the time when the gods walked on earth or who were 
even gods themselves, seemed so venerable to later gener- 
ations that they did not dare to change them much. Thus 
extremely primitive ideas are dragged along to the very end 
of heathenism in Egypt, exactly as the art of the Nile- 
land carried the fetters of tradition from the age of the 
earliest, childish beginnings, as the official costume even 
of the latest Pharaohs showed that it dated from a time 
when the Egyptians were more or less completely naked. 
If it seemed sinful to change such things, how much more 
necessary seemed it to the priests to worship the same 
gods and in the same way as the blessed forefathers had 
done, perhaps back to 10,000 B.C., a time which the mod- 
ern archaeologist must divest of all romantic ideas and 
consider as an age of complete barbarism. 

The older school of Egyptology was very reluctant to 
admit this low valuation of a religion which the classical 
world had viewed with so much interest and respect. In- 
stead of recognizing its crude character, scholars clung 
to isolated statements of some priestly writers which 
showed (or seemed to show) a tendency towards panthe- 
ism or even monotheism. Emphasizing and generalizing 
these passages, they came to the conclusion that the 
Egyptians, or at least the earliest Egyptians, were great 
thinkers, believing in a pantheistic monotheism which they 
only hid under the symbols of polytheism. That the later 
Egyptians, indeed, misunderstood this symbolism very 

34 



THE EGYPTIAN RELIGION 

much, some of these apologists used to admit; above all 
they claimed the meaning of the sacred animals was 
forgotten in later ages and those divine symbols were 
misunderstood as divine personalities in themselves. And 
so they maintained, we must not follow later misinter- 
pretations of the ignorant masses, we must look at the 
pure, original creed as preserved in those isolatedpassages ; 
if ever we should find religious texts from a sufficiently 
old time we should find there the pure solar or pantheistic 
monotheism which befitted such a high civilization. 

These apologetic theories had their day as long as 
Egyptologists had no fuller religious texts from the time 
before 2000 B.C. They became more and more difficult 
when such texts were found, revealing not a simpler re- 
ligion but all those characteristics which had been excused 
as later degenerations. The decisive blow was dealt to 
that apologetic school when in the winter of 1880-81 
the opening of the inscribed pyramids of Dynasties 5 
and 6 furnished to scholars an immense mass of religious 
texts engraved about 2500 b.c, but taken from so much 
older books that even scholars of the pyramid-age under- 
stood them only imperfectly. We may safely consider them 
as the representation of the religious beliefs of the fourth, 
partly, it may be, even of the fifth millennium b.c. In 
this rich material we found nothing of monotheism, but 
we met with all those objectionable sides of the Egyptian 
religion which its apologists had tried to excuse as later 
degenerations. The objectionable worship of animals 
proved to be a very prominent part of this earliest phase 
of religion, and instead of finding a smaller and more sys- 
tematized number of gods, we discovered hundreds of 
new deities, mostly of a very meaningless character. In 
one word : the crude superstitions of the masses in later 
time have proved to be the faithful survival of the oldest 
religious traditions, while the few passages which may 
be adduced as a proof of higher religious speculations 

35 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

belong only to much later periods and represent the iso- 
lated efforts of a few thinkers among the most learned 
priests, efforts which can less be treated as the religion 
of Egypt than the writings of some radical philosophers 
of our age may claim to represent Christianity. Thus 
the view is winning more and more ground that the end- 
less, unsystematic and confused polytheism of the earliest 
Egyptians can be understood only as a development from 
animism (as first had been proposed by R. Pietschmann 
in 1878). The difficult and obscure character of Egyp- 
tian religion is due to the fact that it hovered forever 
between the animistic and the cosmic stage. Even in 
prehistoric time elements of the latter development had 
been mingled with the more primitive traditions, but 
they could never sufficiently modify them. The modem 
scholars, therefore, found signs of a cosmic conception of 
religion, but in applying it to the pantheon it was impos- 
sible for them to discover a harmonious cosmic system. 
And so this transitional character of the religion of 
Egypt is the reason that we have such widely divergent 
views on it in modern books. 

We assume that the prehistoric Egyptians, when they 
began to make the first feeble progress towards civiliza- 
tion, were on the same basis as that on which we find 
many savage tribes of Africa. This most primitive stage 
of animism lacks a clear conception of what we should 
call gods. It considers the whole world filled with spirits 
some roaming freely about, some sedentary, some big 
and powerful, some rather insignificant. They appear, 
rather as transient incarnations than as permanent souls, 
in men or in animals, the more sedentary spirits also in 
trees, rocks or other objects. Disappearing from living 
creatures, at the time when the possession of these ends or 
at their death, they lead over to the idea that all souls 
of the defunct are such ghosts ; however, neither the pure 
cult of ancestors nor the Indian transmigration theories 

36 



THE EGYPTIAN RELIGION 

ever developed in Egypt. It is difficult to draw the line 
betwen the evil and the good ghosts. Primitive men 
holding the animistic theory live in constant fear of all 
ghosts and try to be on good terms with them all. That 
wish leads so easily to magical customs for winning or 
warding off the spirits that many modem scholars be- 
lieve magic an inseparable part of all animistic religions. 
Fetishism is merely a specially characteristic representa- 
tive of this magical development of animism. 

The primitive Egyptians thus once had endless gods, 
if we may call them gods. The more the inhabitants of 
Egypt settled down and became agricultural, the more 
they paid attention to the local spirits. Originally every 
settlement seems to have had at least one local spirit which 
it worshiped exclusively by sacrifices and magical cere- 
monies, not asking what its relation to the spirits of the 
neighboring village or town was, much less its relation 
to nature. Many of these cults survived in historical time 
without change and often also the various taboos at- 
tached to them. Sun, moon, stars, etc., probably were 
considered to have souls and may have been recognized 
as divine but seem to have found very little worship in 
earliest time. Perhaps the town spirit (or spirits) seemed 
nearer to men and more interested in them than those 
immovable phenomena of nature. Thus, the great major- 
ity of the old local gods of Egypt had no cosmical mean- 
ing at all, or where such a meaning was given to them 
we can easily see that it had been developed only later 
and mostly very unsuccessfully. The many contradictions 
in those cosmical explanations betray this. Such local 
gods also rarely have any mythology attached to them, 
because mythology needs a cosmic basis. The best proof 
of the animistic origin of the local cults is that the major- 
ity of their gods have animal form. No theories of 
fear or of utility explain these forms ; and while terrible 
animals like the lion and crocodile or the strong bull and 

37 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

the mysterious serpent appear frequently, we find also 
the little shrewmouse, the frog, the dung-beetle, small fish 
and birds, etc., as gods. Where the animal worship had 
been preserved in its primitive form, the later Egyptians 
connected the sacred animal with the supernatural world 
by explaining it as possessed by a divine spirit. These 
later theologians, living in the age of cosmic religion, 
expounded that spirit as having come from heaven, incar- 
nating some great celestial god. The famous Apis bull 
of Memphis was explained as the incarnation of the sun, 
of the moon, of the many-sided god Osiris, of the neigh- 
boring local gods Sokaris and Ptah. These contradictions, 
which we find quite analogously in the case of other sacred 
animals, betray that these animals originally were inde- 
pendent from all celestial ideas; only the incarnation of 
some unusual ghost is a good remnant of the original 
view, betraying clearly the most primitive animism. The 
extension of the sacredness from one divine animal to 
the whole species {e.g., in the case of the cat) is mostly 
a later development, although some old local taboos on 
animals may allow us to infer it also for the primitive 
period. 

In historic time the condition of a tutelary spirit for 
every village or, perhaps, even every house, cannot be 
found, but at least every town has its local god. This 
still leaves several hundred local gods whom we find on 
the monuments as actually worshiped, thousands of other 
gods (or * souls,' as, significantly, all gods, great and 
small, are often called) are admitted to exist but have 
no cult. These more or less * unknown gods ' are, evi- 
dently, the local gods of smaller communities. The vil- 
lage god with a straw hut as chapel could not compete 
with the town god with his stately temple and rich priest- 
hood, which attracted the villagers so much that they set 
up a shrine of the * great god ' in their settlement and 
then neglected or even in time forgot the old local di- 

38 



THE EGYPTIAN RELIGION 

vinity. We can trace to a certain extent how the local 
ghost of a small village or town may, along with the 
increasing population and power of that settlement, grow 
into a ' great god ' and eventually into a god of the king 
so that he consequently was worshiped over all Egypt 
and placed at the head of the whole pantheon. To pre- 
serve the worship of lesser gods they were, from very 
old times, united with greater gods. Thus many triads 
arose, exactly as in Babylonia. Usually the triad con- 
sisted of father, mother and son (never daughter), more 
rarely of a god with two wives. The famous ennead of 
Heliopolis seems to signify a looser company of gods 
forming a triple triad. Great goddesses associating with 
a male god made him their son. 

While we find many gods (or at least their names) 
lost by assimilation with more important divinities, the 
process of dissimilation is very rare. One of the few 
examples is the local dissimilation of Min(u) of Koptos 
into the younger Anion of Thebes. This latter god illus- 
trates also that development described above, from an 
obscure god of a small town to the highest god of Egypt, 
who even subsequently remained great, while other gods 
had only temporarily a wider reaching importance. 

However, even before the beginning of historic time, 
the tendency began to develop in Egypt, be it by progress 
of thought or through foreign influences, to remove the 
gods from the narrow, local sphere to heaven or to make 
them cosmic. But this tendency never was carried 
through as successfully and systematically as in Baby- 
lonia. Sun, moon and stars may have been the factors 
connecting the old gods with heaven. 

Characteristic of Egypt is the prominence given to the 
sun-god which dominated all other gods in a way hardly 
known in any other country. Many theories are attached 
to him. He is described as a god in human form walking 
over the celestial roads; the sun is his face or eye or 

39 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

head-ornament or the royal serpent wound around his 
forehead. Or he sails in a ship over the blue heavenly 
ocean, rowing himself or the sundisk as passenger or he 
is rowed by divine sailors, that is by the stars who be- 
come his crew in daytime. The sundisk may then be 
in the cabin or as a fiery serpent may wind itself around 
the prow. Very early the hawk-god Horus became 
solar; this led to the explanation of the sun as a hawk 
flying across the sky and to a blending with the older, 
human, form Re', who becomes likewise a hawk sitting 
in the ship of the sun, or at least a hawk-headed man. 
Also a beetle-shaped god Khepri became at an early time 
solar and thus the sun was explained as a scarab rolling 
its tgg across the sky. The ichneumon god Atum(u) of 
Heliopolis, however, had to assume human form at his 
solarization. To harmonize these various forms and 
names later theology teaches that Re' is the general name, 
Hor(us) that of the rising, Atum(u) that of the descend- 
ing sun, Khepri the sun below the horizon as dead (like 
Osiris) or as rising or as the embryonic sun-god pre- 
paring to rise. Also the name Shu especially at noon- 
time occurs, and also other names (Khnumu, on which 
see below, Euf, etc.), for the nocturnal sun in the lower 
world. Later many other gods were solarized. Because 
the words * eye ' and * serpent ' are feminine, an endless 
number of goddesses were also explained as female forms 
of the sun and called the eye, crown, or daughter of the 
sun-god. These female explanations, however, never be- 
came popular; the prevailing theory remained that the 
sun-god was masculine. The myth explaining why the 
sun-god has only one eye, a myth which has wandered far 
in the world's mythology, occurs in various forms. The 
lost eye dropped into the depths of the ocean; how it 
was recovered thence is told in many varying Egyptian 
myths. 

The moon, the most prominent personality of the 

40 



THE EGYPTIAN RELIGION 

Babylonian pantheon, found remarkably little respect in 
Egypt, although identified with the ibis-god Thout(i), he 
became also the god of wisdom, of chronology (because 
the lunar year is most obvious to primitive man) and of 
letters, the secretary of the gods and their physician, who 
heals the sun's eye when it is torn out or damaged. Later 
he had also the form of the baboon ascribed to him. Only 
a few minor deities, like Khons(u) of Thebes, became 
lunar. 

Neither have the planets as important a part as we 
should expect. Originally all were treated as manifesta- 
tions of the heavenly good Horus, i.e., they were not 
clearly distinguished. The morning star was known only 
as masculine, as the husband of the greatest fixed star, 
the dog star (Sothis). The constellations were different 
from those of the Babylonians, except that Orion repre- 
sented also in Egypt the celestial hero, and therefore often 
was identified with the conqueror Horus. The Great 
Dipper was his adversary, the ship Argo held the dead or 
the infant Osiris, and the Pleiades seem to have been 
the constellation of fate (*the seven Hat-hors*). The 
Babylonian zodiacal constellations became known only in 
very late time; originally 36 so-called decan stars held 
their place, dividing the year into 36 weeks of ten days 
(the remaining last five days of the year forming a half 
decade of special sacredness). The Milky Way does not 
seem to have played any part in mythology. While late 
Egyptian astronomy shows clear Babylonian influences, 
these are very feeble in earlier time. 

The sky originally seems to have been depicted as a 
black (i.e., according to Oriental notions blue) bull, 
exactly as in Asia, but soon it assumed feminine gender, 
according to the Egyptian word for it. The heavenly 
cow, between the horns of which the sun-god shows him- 
self, was early identified with an old cow-goddess, Hat- 
hor. She assumed later the character of the Asiatic queen 

41 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

of heaven, becoming mistress of love, joy, music, finery, 
etc., and the names of many other Egyptian goddesses 
were connected with her. Heaven at night-time was, in 
earher time, mostly understood as a tree rising at evening- 
time from the ocean ; the stars were its leaves or fruits or 
represented the gods dwelling and moving in it. This 
starry tree allows man to read both the past and the future 
(therefore the goddess of fate, who sits in the depths of 
the sky writing the fate of the whole world, is connected 
with it). It also gives eternal life in its fruit to the gods 
who eat it every day, and also to the souls of the dead 
who approach this tree in the lower or the higher regions. 
The celestial tree can also be double, symbolizing morning 
and evening, the summer and winter solstice, etc. As the 
sun rises from the tree at morning and hides itself in it 
at evening, the tree can also be understood as a goddess 
and thus is only another form of the cow Hat-hor, or of 
Nut, who in woman's form bends over the earth be- 
getting with this consort the sun as her child anew every 
night as she had begotten him at the creation of the 
world. At evening her child returns into her bosom or 
mouth re-begetting himself. While thus the sky is under- 
stood as the star-beset body of the heavenly goddess at 
night or as her blue hair at daytime, we find it also ex- 
plained as water, the heavenly ocean forming a continua- 
tion of the ocean which flows around and under the earth 
or of the Nile. At the same time it is also a metal roof 
and thunder is the resounding of this immense sheet 
of metal from which the meteorites fall as chips and 
from which the similar ore below is derived. All these 
theories are boldly harmonized so that, for example, the 
heavenly cow is held to consist of water and the heavenly 
ocean to flow over the metal roof. The aether or empty 
space between sky and earth is identified with the god 
Shu, whose strong arms uphold the sky-goddess or at 
the creation separated her from her consort, the earth. 

42 



THE EGYPTIAN RELIGION 

Shu, however, was originally a lion god; he was first 
understood as a form of the sun, then as solar ruler of 
the sky or as the sky himself, so that we see that his role as 
the aether was a secondary differentiation of the last- 
mentioned development. His sister and wife, the lioness 
Tefenet, confirms this development, because she retained 
the character of a female sun, i.e., the eye or daughter 
of the heavenly god. 

The earth-god (Qeb or Geb), the husband of the sky, 
is thought of as a man stretched on his back ; all vegeta- 
tion grows from his flesh. A later theological etymology 
then makes him a gander, the great cackler who lays the 
sun-egg at night and cackles over it. An earlier form of 
the earth-god was Aker(u), a double-faced lion; one 
mouth swallows up the sun-god at evening and the other 
mouth spits him out in the morning. Later theologians 
distinguished him as the depth of the earth from Qeb. 
The prevailing idea of the sun's origin is, however, that 
he was born or begat himself, proceeding from the oldest 
of all gods. Nun, the ocean, or, more particularly, the 
abyss into which the sun still sinks every night. This 
wise father of the sun and of all gods shows that the cos- 
mogony deriving the whole world from the chaotic prim- 
eval waters and recognizing the sunlight as the cause of 
all organic life and of the present order of the world, 
belongs to the earliest results of human thought. The 
Egyptian mind, however, did not always distinguish the 
great ocean from the local ocean, the beneficent Nile, the 
father of all fatness, or from the local god who presided 
over the extreme south, the ram-shaped cataract god 
Khnum(u), because the source of the Nile (single, or 
double, ie., representing the Egyptian and the Ethiopic 
Nile, or quadruple, i.e., the four sources representing the 
water system of the world in so many mythologies of 
other nations) was placed at the first cataract and was 
connected with the abyss. Likewise, the Osiris myth led 

43 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

to two contradictory explanations of the ocean and its 
smaller counterpart streaming from the cataract. 

We thus find an extremely rich mythology attached to 
the forces of nature in a way which betrays a long de- 
velopment of struggling speculations. That these could 
not be successfully harmonized and not even systematized 
as far as in most mythologies of Western Asia, was not 
felt to be a great disadvantage. All mythologies have 
somewhat a kaleidoscopic character; the ancients con- 
sidered this as attractive and did not worry over contra- 
dictions as much as the children of more rationalistic 
ages. That the kaleidoscopic features are so very promi- 
nent in Egypt was less caused by lack of systematic sense 
in the Egyptian mind than by its over-conservative cling- 
ing to the old local gods of the forefathers. Originally 
destitute of all cosmic meaning and all mythology, as we 
have said above, those old pictures, fetishes and sacred 
animals admitted various interpretations. Thus it became 
possible that the theories of the later cosmic conception 
of religion were attached to different local names. The 
priests were so very reluctant to admit that another god 
than the one of their own town held some important 
function in nature (especially the embodiment in the sun 
and the rule over the sky), that many competing ex- 
planations were never or only incompletely reconciled. 

A great part of the pantheon never could be adapted 
to any cosmic explanation or develop a mythology. Thus, 
the extremely old worship of Min(u) at Koptos never 
received any such explanation, although his rock-chapel 
and sacred grove would seem to us to suggest specula- 
tions. Only when the obscene statue of this god was 
compared with Osiris, he gained a little mythological life. 
The white bull attached to that cult, however, remained 
meaningless and mysterious. And the similarly old and 
primitive statue of Ptah at Memphis admitted no other 
explanation for later thinkers than that arising from the 

44 



THE EGYPTIAN RELIGION 

pale (yellow) skin of this god and from a forced ety- 
mology of his name, namely, that he was a god much 
confined to his home, an artist who produced works in 
stone, wood and metal, hence the Greeks compared him 
with their smith-god Hephaestus, and the later Egyptians 
tried to ascribe to him a poorly defined activity at the 
creation of the world. An identification with the wise 
god of the abyss Nun, the father of all gods, is a product 
of these late attempts to give some meaning to the old, 
obscure cult. But with some less prominent gods it is 
questionable whether any serious attempts were made to 
lift them beyond the conception of the primitive, animistic 
age. For the masses of worshipers this was not neces- 
sary; the veneration was mostly founded more on the 
antiquity than on the meaning of the divinities. 

We have omitted so far to discuss the group of gods 
which found the richest development of mythology in all 
Egypt and the widest worship, extending even beyond 
the soil of Egypt. This is the Osirian divine circle. 
While the names of all its gods are old and purely Egyp- 
tian, we must express doubts whether their mythological 
meaning and connection belonged to prehistoric Egypt. 
We find that the Osirian mythology is closely connected 
with the myth of the dying god who appears as Tam- 
muz-Adonis in Canaan, as Duzu in Babylonia, as Attis 
in Asia Minor, etc. The Egyptians themselves were con- 
scious that the cult of Osiris had a close parallel in 
Phoenicia (especially at Gebal or Byblos), and partly even 
seem to have admitted that the Phoenician cult was more 
original. We find it fully developed in Egypt in the pyra- 
mid texts before 2500 and can thus trace it to the time 
about 3000 B.C., but we cannot establish it with certainty 
before that time, at least not in Upper Egypt. It may 
have had a long prior development in Lower Egypt where 
the principal figure, the god Osiris, was identified with 
the local god at Busiris, whose oldest symbol was a very 

45 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

peculiar wooden pillar. Possibly, there the neighboring 
goddess Isis was associated with him as his wife and the 
hawk-god Horus as his son even before this triad was 
connected in any way with that Asiatic myth of the god 
of dying and reviving nature. 

On the other hand, this myth was nowhere else so 
richly developed as in Egypt. There we find Osiris ex- 
plained as manifesting himself in every change of nature, 
above all in the sun which dies, is buried, and revives 
every day; the dissection of Osiris into many pieces seems 
to connect the sun with the stars. He shows himself 
also in the moon, the most changeable of all heavenly 
bodies, and in some of the principal stars and constella- 
tions (Orion, Argo), even in the whole sky, so that he 
becomes god of the sky, manifesting himself in the celes- 
tial tree as god of the year or of eternal life. As year- 
god he appears also in plant-life or in the water, awaken- 
ing the seeds every year; hence this god of the spring 
season in northern countries takes the specifically Egyp- 
tian character of the inundation water. This leads to 
complete identification with the Nile, as this springs from 
the dark netherworld. Osiris can be explained also as the 
abyss or even as the great ocean and as the quickening 
element of water in general. As god of the lower world 
and the realm of the dead, this black (i.e., dead) god re- 
ceives the character of judge of the dead, which idea is 
nowhere as fully developed as in Egypt. He procures 
resurrection to the dead, for the water of life and plant of 
life (often identified with the vine) are in his hand ; there- 
fore every dead man wishes to become one with Osiris. 
There are, however, some traces that his responsibility 
for bringing death into the world and becoming fore- 
father of mortal humanity was sometimes felt and the 
question of a guilt was raised. After all, this was the 
most complicated and, therefore, the most attractive char- 
acter among all the gods, as the ruler both of light and 

46 



I 



THE EGYPTIAN RELIGION 

darkness, both of life and death, the beginning and the 
end of everything, forefather of mankind and of civiliza- 
tion. His judicial seat may be found in the stars or in 
the lower world, or near or in the source of the Nile, 
either farther south in Nubia or in the depths of the cata- 
ract waters, or in other remote regions. So he lends 
himself easily to the character of a god of all nature. 

His faithful wife Isis bears the traits of the Asiatic 
queen of heaven and like her appears as mourning end- 
lessly over her lost lover, reviving him directly or at 
least in his son Horus or in the Nile (springing from or 
swelling by her tears) or in heavenly phenomena. The 
hawk-god, Horus, before his connection with Osiris, god 
of the sun or of heaven, frequently is declared to be 
identical with Osiris, as reborn form of the latter; thisi 
gives a satisfactory explanation of all his other cosmic 
explanations parallel to that of Osiris. 

Somewhat later in origin seems to be the part of Seth 
as adversary of this good triad and murderer of his 
brother Osiris. This god, once the chief of the South- 
land or even of the whole Egyptian pantheon, who was, 
it seems, venerated in a strange animal which was later 
interpreted as wild ass, boar, etc., came into political con- 
trast to Horus. Identified with the storm and thunder 
he became thus a wicked god, but nevertheless remained 
popular especially as a manly divinity well suited for 
soldiers. It is interesting to observe that his development 
into a real Satan began only with the introduction of the 
Babylonian myth of the abysmal serpent Tiamat, after 
2500 B.C. Seth was more and more identified with that 
enemy of the sun-god (called Apop in Egypt) and thus 
the impersonation of the ocean passed from good Osiris 
to wicked Seth. The influence of that myth, which cre- 
ated the idea of a Satan in so many other religions, had 
the same effect also in Egypt. Thus after 1000 b.c. Seth 
had developed into a real devil worshiped only by 
sorcerers. 

47 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

We cannot discuss the connection of the obscure god- 
dess Nephthys with Seth as his wife, or of an earlier 
god of all dead, Anubis, with Osiris as his son or at least 
his assistant in judging the dead, nor the rich develop- 
ment of the many theories about life after death. Egyp- 
tian religion after the ancient introduction of the Qisirian 
myth often received Asiatic motifs and even some Asiatic 
gods, but no further influences so far-reaching as those 
mentioned above. 

The autochthonous development of thought was slow 
and timid. The syncretism of similar gods was, indeed, 
old and the early solar explanations of so many gods 
prepared the ground for the theory, found after 1600 B.C., 
that all forces of nature were only manifestations of one 
great god of the universe, the sun. Thus the imperfect 
solar monotheism of the short-lived religious reform of 
Pharaoh Amenhotep IV (about 1400 b.c.) was, after all, 
not as novel an undertaking as it seems at first; some 
pantheistic and almost monotheistic tendencies can be 
traced some centuries farther back. The masses, how- 
ever, successfully resisted that reform, clinging to the 
old local names and cults. It cannot be repeated too 
strongly that all deviations from their conservatism were 
isolated and timid steps of a few most advanced scholars. 

The question remains: Why did this religion effect 
such a favorable and deep impression upon the Greeks 
and Romans that it extended over the whole Roman 
empire, so that in the last centuries of heathenism many 
hoped to find in the popular cult of Osiris an antidote 
against the spreading Christian creed? True, that Egyp- 
tian religion in foreign lands was strongly influenced by 
ideas from other religions, above all from Greek phi- 
losophy, but still it tried to keep the outward forms of 
Egyptian cult, temples with hieroglyphic inscriptions, 
obelisks, sacred animals, etc. We cannot explain this 
success with the non-Egyptian masses from the moral 



THE EGYPTIAN RELIGION 

influence of the Egyptian religion. It brought no new 
ethical ideas to the gentile world. Much less can we 
explain that success from profound metaphysical specula- 
tions. We have not discovered a single line of philosophy 
like that of the Greeks in hieroglyphic writing, and must 
doubt whether such a literature ever was attempted. The 
Egyptian priests were too much keepers of the old tradi- 
tions to open such new paths of thinking. 

However, it seems that it was this very conservatism 
and the simple, blind faith of the Eg^-ptian masses which 
impressed the classical people so very deeply. Greek 
religion had become a shadowy remembrance and was 
treated with skepticism ^nd frivolity, while the Egyptians 
firmly insisted on the bodily presence of the gods in their 
temples. So the Greeks concluded that such an earnest 
faith must have some deeper, secret reasons and that the 
Egyptian gods, notwithstanding all their strange features, 
possessed more reality than the shadowy gods of Greece. 
The wonderful civilization, above all, the architecture of 
the Egyptians and the attractiveness of everything un- 
intelligible added to this impression that the mysterious 
creed of Egypt deserved special esteem. This over- 
valuation of the alleged religious wisdom hidden in the 
hieroglyphs has remained to this day and still influences 
many modern scholars ; but it cannot stand any unpreju- 
diced criticism, as we have here tried to show. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

H. Brugsch : Religion und Theologie der alien Aegypten, 1888. 

E. A. W. Budge : The Gods of the Egyptians, 1904. 

Georg Steindorff: The Religion of the Ancient Egyptians, 1004 
(American Lectures on the History of Religions). 

Alfred Wiedemann : Religion of the Ancient Egyptians, 1907. 

Adolf Erman : A Handbook of Egyptian Religion, English Transla- 
tion by A. S. Griffith, 1907. 

In de la Saussaye's Religionsgeschichte, article by H. O. Lange : " Die 
^gypten," vol. i, pp. 172-245. 

The volume by W. Max Miiller, " The Mythology of the Egyptians " 
in the series The Mythology of All Races is now in press. 

49 



CHAPTER III 

THE RELIGION OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA 
BY MORRIS JASTROW, JR 

I. 

Our interest in the religion of Babylonia and Assyria 
is threefold : for its antiquity ; for its connection with one 
of the most remarkable of ancient civilizations ;^ and for 
its bearings, in part direct, in part indirect, on the un- 
folding of religious thought among the ancient Hebrews. 

We are now able to trace the history of the Euphrates 
Valley back to a period considerably beyond 3000 B.C. 
At that early date there were two distinct ethnic groups 
forming the main body of the population. As depicted 
on the monuments and works of art the one group is 
clean shaven, the other bearded, though not infrequently 
with the upper lip shaved.^ The former group is marked 
by obliquely set eyes and a long but not thick nose, and 
by thin lips and rather high cheek bones, the other has 
the fleshy nose and thick lips as well as other features 
characteristic of the Semitic race. The variation extends 
to the dress, a flounced garment hanging from the waist 
in the one case, a plaid thrown across the shoulder and 
draping the entire body in the other. The group with 
the racial characteristics of the Semites was known as 
the Akkadians ; the other, a non-Semitic group, but whose 
possible affinities with other races has not yet been de- 
termined, bore the name Sumerian. The centre of the 
Semitic settlements, at the time when the monumental 

* See Jastrow, The Civilisation of Babylonia and Assyria, for a 
full account of the history, religion, commerce, law, art and literature 
•of the region. 

"See Eduard Meyer, Sumerier und Semiten in Bahylonien (Ber- 
lin, 1906), for a full exposition of the subject with many illustrations. 

50 



RELIGION OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA 

material comes into view, was in the northern section 
of the Euphrates Valley, while the strongholds of the 
Sumerians were in the south.^ The Semites appear to 
have entered the valley from the northwest, coming down 
from the mountain regions of Syria, while the Sumerians 
— also a people of mountainous origin — probably came 
from the northeast, though this is still a mooted point. 
Which of the two groups came first is likewise a question 
to which as yet no definite answer can be given, though 
there is much in favor of Eduard Meyer's view that the 
Semites or Akkadians were the first on the ground and 
that the Sumerians entered the land as conquerors, hold- 
ing the Akkadians in subjection for many centuries, until, 
about 2500 B.c.^ the tide began to turn. At about 2100 
B.C. we find the Akkadians definitely in control in the 
entire Euphrates Valley and maintaining the supremacy 
over the Sumerians, though not without some periods of 
temporary reaction especially in the extreme southern 
section where the Sumerians managed to retain a sem- 
blance of political independence. 

More important than the question of the original 
settlement of the Valley is the rivalry between Sumerians 
and Akkadians which directly stimulated the intellectual 
qualities of both groups and led to the high order of 
culture for which the Euphrates Valley became distin- 
guished. It will be found to be a general rule that civili- 
zations of the first rank develop through the comming- 
ling of two distinct races, entering into rivalry with each 
other. Such a commingling develops the best qualities 
in both. To distinguish in detail the elements contributed 
by each is a task that lies beyond the scope of a survey 
of the religious views and practices unfolded in the 
Euphrates Valley. Obviously, the share of the Sumerians 

'On these divisions of the Euphrates Valley and on the early 
and later history of the Sumerians and Akkadians see Jastrow, 
op. cit. c. iii. 

51 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

in the earlier periods was far greater. The cuneiform 
script developing from picture writing is of Sumerian 
origin. The oldest documents of all kinds are written in 
Sumerian. Later, when the Akkadians began to obtain 
control, the script was adapted to conveying thoughts, 
facts and data in Akkadian, while the Sumerian, though 
for a long time surviving in the cult, became archaic, and 
even before this stage was reached, was modified by the 
introduction of Akkadian elements. In return many dis- 
tinctly Sumerian features passed over into Akkadian, and 
externally in the use of hundreds of characters used 
ideographically,^ the Akkadian continued to show a 
Sumerian aspect. 

In the domain of architecture, one may see the result 
of the commingling of the two races in the two types 
of religious edifices that arose in- the important centres 
of the Euphrates Valley, (i) the house as the dwelling 
of the deity modelled after the human habitation, and 
(2) the stage tower, a huge brick construction of con- 
siderable height with a winding ascent, clearly in imi- 
tation of a mountain with a road leading to the top, as 
the seat of the deity. The house-motif for the temple is 
of Semitic origin, while the stage tower is the contri- 
bution of the Sumerians who, accustomed in their moun- 
tain homes to worship their deities on mountain tops, 
endeavored to symbolize this belief by the imitation of a 
mountain when they came to a perfectly flat country like 
the Euphrates Valley. 

In passing, it may be well to remind the reader that 
the course of civilization in Mesopotamia is from the 
south to the north, that Assyria as a northern offshoot 
of Babylonia — the common designation of the south — 
represents merely an extension of the culture produced 
in Babylonia. The language of Assyria is identical with 

*I.e., each sign representing an entire word and not a mere 
syllable. See for details, Jastrow, op. cit. c. ii, especially p. 99 seq. 

S2 



RELIGION OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA 

that of Babylonia, the art is largely borrowed from the 
south, though in temple and palace architecture some 
original contributions were made. The literature pro- 
duced in Babylonia was copied by the royal scribes of 
Assyria, and in the domain of religious conceptions only 
minor modifications are to be noted in the aspect taken 
on by the transfer of the religion from Babylonia to 
Assyria. 

Outwardly, to be sure, and practically Babylonia and 
Assyria present a striking contrast Corresponding to 
the more rugged region of northern Mesopotamia, the 
Assyrians, mixed with some non-Semitic groups that came 
down from Asia Minor, appear to have been from the 
time that they appear on the horizon, a little before 2000 
B.C., of a more martial disposition. Warfare became 
the expression of the genius of Assyria. A rivalry ensued 
between the north and south which led to serious en- 
counters as early as 1500 B.C. and eventually brought 
about the subjection of the more pacific, though by no 
means weak, south to the north. The seven centuries 
from c. 1 100 B.C. to 600 B.C. represent the period of 
Assyria's greatness, going hand in hand with her greatest 
martial activity; but in return she exhausted her vitality 
quicker than Babylonia. In 606 B.C. Nineveh fell as a 
result of a combination against her in which hordes from 
Asia Minor joined with the Babylonians to rid the world 
of a menace that threatened the existence of large and 
small nations as well. A new, though short, era of inde- 
pendence dawned for Babylonia which came to an end 
with Cyrus* triumphal entry into Babylon in 539 B.C. 
Persia fell heir to the glorious legacy of Babylonia. 
During this long stretch of three millenniums, the Eu- 
phrates Valley had undergone many vicissitudes of for- 
tune. Not infrequently foreign invaders sat on the 
throne. Indeed, for five centuries (c. 1 700-1200 b.c.) 
a people coming from the mountainous region to the 

S3 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

east and known as the Cassites retained the mastery over 
the Euphrates Valley; but the Sumero- Akkadian civili- 
zation, though suffering a temporary decline, was too 
firmly established to be swept away. Religion, art, litera- 
ture and commerce continued to flourish, though showing 
changed aspects, as a period of upward tendency was 
followed by a reaction during the centuries of Cassite 
control, 

ir 

The Babylonian-Assyrian religion in its oldest form 
as revealed by the votive inscriptions of Sumerian rulers 
and by specimens of literature that may with great proba- 
bility be carried back to the earliest period, is long past 
the stage of primitive beliefs, though it shows traces that 
in its conception of divine government of the universe 
it started from what is commonly termed animism. By 
this term is meant a view of nature ascribing life to all 
phenomena and of the same order as the vital force that 
manifests itself in human and animal activity.^ Under 
this view the gods worshiped by man are personifications 
either of phenomena of nature or of objects in nature, 
primarily the sun, the moon, the storm (with its accom- 
paniment of rain, thunder and lightning), the earth, 
water (including streams and wells), trees and rocks. 
Religion being the partly emotional, partly intellectual 
response to an instinct, confirmed by experience, that 
man is not the arbiter of his fate, it is natural for him 
to make the effort to supplement his inherent and self- 
evident weakness in the presence of nature by securing the 
aid of powers upon whose favor he is dependent. The 
storm destroys his handiwork, and therefore to avoid the 
catastrophe he seeks the favor of the power manifesting 
itself in the storm. The stream may sink his primitive 

• See Chapter I of this work for a, more detailed discussion of 
animism, as a stage through which primitive culture passes every- 
where. 

54 



RELIGION OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA 

craft and therefore, before trusting himself to the treach- 
erous element, he endeavors to assure himself of the favor 
of the spirit or power residing in the water. When he 
advances to the agricultural stage, the earth and the 
sun are the two forces that in the main condition his 
welfare; and as a consequence he personifies the earth 
as a mother in whose womb the seed has been placed, 
which with the cooperation of the sun is brought to 
fruition. 

Starting from this animistic conception of nature, 
the Sumerians and Akkadians developed a pantheon, all 
the members of which take theif rise as personified 
powers of nature. In thus grouping the gods into a more 
or less definite relationship — and that is involved in the 
creation of a pantheon — the religion passes beyond the 
animistic stage. The gods in the larger centres become, 
primarily, the protectors of the place, and as the group 
enlarges its geographical boundaries, the jurisdiction and 
the attributes of a local god are correspondingly in- 
creased. He becomes, irrespective of his original char- 
acter, the protector of the fields, the guardian of the 
army; it is he who gives victory over the enemy and 
when misfortunes come, it is the god who sends the 
pimishment because of anger that has been aroused in 
him. The combination of little groups into a powerful 
state brings about further changes, and as one state comes 
to exercise a sovereignty over other combinations of 
groups, the gods of the various locahties are organized 
after the pattern of human society into a royal court 
with gradations in rank, corresponding to the class dis- 
tinctions that grow in complication as combinations of 
groups result in the formation of a political unit. 

Of the chief local ?ods which thus take on a larger 
character we mav sinHe out Enki. whom the Akkadians 
designated as Ea, and who from being the patron deity 
of Eridu, lying at the head of the Persian Gulf, becomes 

55 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

the god of waters in general. Another deity, Enhl, 
originally a storm-god and associated with the old Su- 
merian centre, Nippur, becomes the head of the Sumerian 
pantheon because of the importance which Nippur ac- 
quired, in part political, in part due to the position of 
Nippur as a religious centre. As such, Enlil acquires 
attributes originally foreign to his nature. He becomes 
an agricultural deity and is addressed in terms which 
show that he has absorbed the power ascribed to the sun 
and water as well. At Shirpurla, another Sumerian 
centre, the chief deity is Ningirsu, a personification of 
the sun, who becomes a powerful warrior, with a mighty 
net in which he catches the soldiers of the enemy. In 
Uruk we find a great mother goddess, Nana, worshiped 
as the patron of the place by the side of Anu, originally 
likewise a sun-god who becomes the god of the heavens 
in general and the father of all the gods. At Ur, which 
in an early period was the seat of a powerful Sumerian 
dynasty, the patron of the place was Sin, a personifica- 
tion of the moon, pictured as an old man with a flowing 
beard and sailing along the heavens in a bark. Wisdom 
was associated with him and he too becomes in one of 
the systems that arose the " father '* of the gods and the 
guide of the universe. Ut or Babbar at Larsa is again 
a sun-god, as is Shamash in the Akkadian centre Sippar 
to the north. Justice is one of the chief attributes as- 
signed to him. He is described as the great judge who 
brings wrongdoings to light and saves the innocent from 
the machinations of the wicked. 

In the later period Marduk, again a solar deity, as 
the patron of the city of Babylon, becomes supreme over 
all the gods when Babylon rises to the position of the 
capital of the Babylonian empire. With this step, finally 
achieved by the great Hammurapi (2 123-2081 b.c), the 
attributes of all the other great gods are bestowed on 
Marduk, and such tendencies toward a monotheistic con- 

56 



RELIGION OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA 

ception of the universe as are to be noted in the course of 
the development of the Babylonian religion gather about 
his cult. The proximity of Borsippa to Babylon (lying 
almost opposite the latter) brought about a close associa- 
tion between Marduk and the local deity of Borsippa, 
known as Nabu, who may have been originally a personi- 
fication of the watery element — perhaps the god of the 
Euphrates more particularly. The relationship between 
Marduk and Nabu is pictured as that of father to son, 
and to such an extent are the original traits of Nabu 
obscured that he becomes merely a somewhat pale reflec- 
tion of Marduk — a junior Marduk by the side of a senior. 
* In the same way we have in the many other localities 
of southern and northern Babylonia deities closely asso- 
ciated with a place as patron and guardian who are 
originally personifications of the sun, moon, water, earth 
or the storm, but whose original character tends to be- 
come obscured through one circumstance or another, 
concomitant with changes in the political kaleidoscope 
and with advancing social conditions. A result of this 
growth in the conception of the divine government of the 
universe — for it is to be regarded as a growth — is the 
tendency, on the one hand, for minor local deities to be- 
come absorbed by those in the larger centres, while, on 
the other hand, we note a disposition to differentiate the 
functions of a nature deity and to divide his various mani- 
festations among those originally personifying the same 
power. Many of the local deities were, for obvious rea- 
sons, solar gods. When Shamash, the sun-god of Sip- 
par, became, with the rise of that city to supreme politi- 
cal importance, the chief solar deity, the minor sun-gods 
were identified with Shamash. They became mere epi- 
thets; a place was provided for them in the systems 
devised in the temple schools, as children, messengers, at- 
tendants and servitors, — down to such human function- 
aries as vezirs, throne-bearers, scribes, and even bakers 

57 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

and butlers. Again, when a solar deity was too impor- 
tant to be entirely absorbed in this fashion, the mani- 
festations of the sun were differentiated, and a solar deity 
like Ningirsu of Shirpurla or Ninib of Nippur was re- 
garded as the sun of the morning and of springtime, 
while Nergal, the sun-god of Cuthah, was regarded as 
the personification of the sun of high noon and of mid- 
summer. The former was regarded as a beneficent 
power, driving away the storms of the rainy season and 
bringing about the revivification of nature in the spring, 
the latter as a destructive power, bringing suffering, dis- 
ease and death to mankind through the scorching heat 
and drought of the mid-summer season. 

It thus h'appens that a widely diffused polytheism con- 
tinues to be the striking feature of the Babylonian- 
Assyrian religion, despite the counter endeavors to devise 
theological systems that aimed to reduce the many gods 
to a limited number of superior powers in actual control 
of the universe. Between these two tendencies, the one 
towards providing a place for literally hundreds of deities, 
the other towards concentrating actual divine power in a 
limited number, the Babylonian- Assyrian religion runs its 
course. The former tendency leads further towards 
recognizing, besides hundreds of deities, a large number 
of minor divine beings, demons pictured in human or 
animal form to whom diseases and all kinds of mishaps 
are assigned. We shall see presently how this belief 
led to divination practices of all kinds, which form a 
very prominent part of the practical religion. The latter 
tendency has its outcome in the division of divine gov- 
ernment among three powers. There are several groups 
of such triads. Foremost stands a triad composed of 
Anu, to whom the control of the heavens is assigned; 
Enlil, who rules the earth and the atmosphere above it, 
and Ea, who represents the watery element surrounding 
the earth, and on which the earth is supposed to float 

58 



RELIGION OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA 

like a rubber ball. In the case of all three gods all local 
limitations have entirely disappeared, as have all traces 
of the specific power of nature originally personified by 
each of them. In fact, they have become almost abstrac- 
tions, representing or symbolizing three divisions of the 
visible universe. The triad reminds one of the injunction 
added to the second of the Biblical ten " Words," not to 
make any image for worship of anything in the heavens 
above, on the earth beneath or in the waters under the 
earth, and which reads like a protest against the Babylon- 
ian triad. Less artificial in character and of more prac- 
tical import is another triad frequently occurring in in- 
scriptions and invariably depicted by symbols on the 
boundary stones,^ consisting of Sin, the moon-god, Sha- 
mash, the sun-god, and Ishtar, the planet Venus, symbol- 
izing the great mother goddess, the source of life and fer- 
tility. These three gods represent the chief powers upon 
which man is dependent, summing up, as it were, the 
chief protectors of human life and the chief guides of 
his being. In place of Ishtar, Adad, a general god of 
storms who never appears to have had any specific local 
cult, IS introduced, and not infrequently we have, instead 
of a triad, a group of four, — Sin, Shamash, Adad and 
Ishtar, in which combination the latter represents the 
female element in general, essential' as a complement to 
the male to produce the manifestations of life in the uni- 
verse. Around these triads as around the group of four 
gods, speculations were developed in the temple schools 
which led to giving the Babylonian-Assyrian religion 
certain mystic aspects, albeit of a purely theological 
character. 

In general, however, and for the purposes of the cult, 
a much larger group of great gods was recognized, the 

' See Jastrow, op. cit., plate Ixii, and for many specimens, King, 
Babylonian Boundary Stones and Memorial Tablets in the British 
Museum (London, 1912). 

59 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

number of which in Assyrian days was fixed at thirteen. 
So far as these chief gods are concerned, the Assyrian 
pantheon, it may be noted in passing, is identical with that 
of Babylonia, but for the single figure of Ashur, origi- 
nally a solar deity and the patron of the city of Ashur, 
the earliest capital of Assyria, who naturally became the 
head of the Assyrian pantheon. In keeping with the 
martial spirit of the Assyrians, on which we have dwelt, 
Ashur became primarily a god of war. He does not 
appear to have been ordinarily represented by a human 
figure, as were the other gods of Babylonia and Assyria, 
but by a rather refined symbol, a disc representing the 
sun, with rays streaming in both directions.'^ The symbol 
reveals the association of Ashur with the sun^ but it also 
points to an attempt to rise beyond purely animistic con- 
ceptions. The winged disc becomes a general symbol of 
divine power, arising at a time when the seats of all the 
great gods, under the influence of astrological specula- 
tions, were placed in the heavens. In this respect Ashur 
reminds us of Anu, who, it will be recalled, became the 
god of the heavens par excellence; and indeed there are 
some reasons for believing that Ashur, the chief god of 
Assyria, was originally Anu and that Ashur is an epithet, 
having the force originally of the god of the city of 
Ashur. At all events we know that Anu was worshiped 
in Ashur and that the god Ashur like Anu was a personi- 
fication of the sun, enlarged in both cases to a very general 
conception of divine government of the universe. 

Ashur, naturally, takes the place in Assyria which in 
Babylonia belongs to Marduk, but such was the force of 
tradition that Marduk continues to be invoked by the 
Assyrian rulers as their patron deity by the side of Ashur, 
particularly after Babylonia fell under Assyrian control. 
The Assyrian conquerors did not regard their inaugura- 
tion complete until they had proceeded to the southern 

' See the illustrations in Jastrow, op. cit, plate xxxi. 

60 



RELIGION OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA 

capital and there in a ceremony that involved " taking the 
hand of Marduk " or Bel, i.e., " the lord," as Marduk 
came to be called, confirmed their rule over the south 
as well as over the north. The gods thus recognized as 
the chief figures of the pantheon and commonly invoked 
by the Assyrian rulers were Ashur, Sin, Shamash, Adad, 
Marduk, Nabu, Ishtar, Ninib, Nergal, Nusku.* Adding 
to these Anu, Enlil and Ea, we obtain the number thir- 
teen as the pantheon. Each of these gods had a female 
consort, but these associates are merely pale reflections 
of their male companions and, with the exception of 
Ishtar, who is, as we have seen, an independent figure, 
play a very minor role in the cult. The Assyrians, it 
should be added, recognized three Ishtars : one the god- 
dess of Nineveh; another, the goddess of Arbela (not 
far distant from Nineveh), and the third designated as 
the " queen of Kitmuru," the origin of which term is 
obscure. But Ishtar as the chief and, in a sense, the 
only goddess becomes naturally the consort of the head 
of the pantheon. So in Babylonia Ishtar is associated 
with Marduk and in Assyria with Ashur, although Mar- 
duk's consort has also another name, Sarpanit, that is, 
" the resplendent one," while Ashur standing above all the 
gods is generally spoken of in a manner to suggest soli- 
tary grandeur, brooking no one — not even a consort — 
by his side. 

We have already indicated that such tendencies as 
exist towards recognizing a single power as the sole 
arbiter of the universe centre in Babylonia around Mar- 
duk. Correspondingly, we find in Assyria, Ashur rising 
to a position which suggests that the Assyrians too were 
groping their way to a conception of the unity of the 
universe. The thought that all phenomena are to be traced 
to a single source was at least grasped, though never in 
so definite a manner as to lead to a genuine monotheistic 

*The god of fire— originally, again, a solar deity. 

6i 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

conception of divine government. Steps in this direction 
were made, but after all the force oi the old an.nnsiic 
conceptions of the gods was too strong to lead to i. aetinite 
change in the religion. Ashur remains, like Marduk, a 
primus inter pares, though so much more pronounced in 
his personality that all the other gods impress one like 
little Ashurs by the side of the great one. There is none 
like Ashur, just as in Babylonia there is none like Marduk. 
The higher spiritual conception of the presence of the 
divine in the universe thus encountered decided limita- 
tions, and despite considerable speculation of a relatively 
advanced theological character in the temple schools, the 
religion of the masses remained on a low level. This is 
particularly illustrated in the cult to which we may now 
turn. 

Ill 
The gods exist according to the Babylonian-Assyrian 
point of view in order to be worshiped. They feel lonely 
without temples, and in one of the accounts of creation 
the gods are represented as creating mankind in order 
to have temples and worshipers. In return, the gods 
act as protectors of humanity, although in the early period 
of predominating local cults each god is interested only 
in those who dwell within his jurisdiction. Success in 
undertakings, good crops, business ventures, health, pos- 
sessions, victory in arms — all come through the favor of 
the gods. The aim of the cult, therefore, is to secure and 
happily to retain the good-will of the gods. The gods 
must be kept in good humor. They crave homage, and 
woe to the ruler or people who neglect to pay the proper 
respect to the gods. By a natural corollary, all misfor- 
tunes are ascribed to the anger of the gods. Bad crops, 
defeat in battle, pestilence, destructive storms, mishaps 
of all kinds, including failure in business, are the punish- 
ments sent by offended gods. The theory was a con- 
venient one, for it shifted the responsibility from one's 

62 



RELIGION OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA 

own shoulders for ill- fortune and placed it on the gods, 
but on the other hand there was also some reason for the 
anger of the superior powers, albeit one was not always 
able to fathom it. 

This theory of the alternate favor and anger of the 
gods formed the basis of religious ethics as well ; it domi- 
nates the view taken of sin, for sin meant the commission 
of an act or an omission of one, resulting in arousing the 
anger of some deity. Such an omission might consist in 
not bringing tribute or in not asking for his assistance in 
any undertaking, while the commission might be an error 
in pronouncing certain formulae or a mistake in the per- 
formance of some religious rite. 

By the side of such acts or misdeeds, not involving a f ^ 
breach of ethics from our point of view, there were also 
actual transgressions, such as lying, cheating, stealing, 
adultery, treachery, cruelty, failure to show proper con- 
sideration for one's parents or for one's fellows or neglect 
of other duties that would arouse the displeasure of a god. 
The genuine ethical element thus enters into the religion, 
but it is characteristic of the status of the religion that 
down to the latest period no distinction is made between 
an ethical misdeed and a purely ritualistic transgression 
or omission.^ The appeal to the gods was made by cer- 
tain acts and rites, more or less symbolical, accompanied 
by the recital of certain formulae supposed to have the 
power of making a direct appeal either for the manifesta- 
tion of divine power or for the removal of a god's dis- 
pleasure. The aspects of the cult thus resulting may be 
grouped under two categories, ( i ) incantations, shading 
off into prayers and hymns, accompanied by rites to sym- 
bolize the release of a sufferer from disease or from some 
other evil, and (2) divination methods to ascertain the 
disposition and by implication the intention of a deity, 

• See as an example the category of " sins " in Jastrow, Religion 
of Babylonia and Assyria^ p. 291. 

63 



5l 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

and thus to forestall impending evil, or at all events to Be 
prepared for the blow, if it was inevitable. 

The hoped-for release from sickness — the most com- 
mon punishment sent by an angered god or goddess — 
naturally plays a very large part in the incantations, as 
well as in compositions of a higher order, properly to be 
classed as hymns but in which the incantation motif is 
always discernible. Demoniac possession as the essential 
reason for bodily pain and tortures was accepted by the 
Babylonians and Assyrians throughout all periods, de- 
spite considerable progress made in the medicinal treat- 
ment of disease, through the use of numerous drugs and 
concoctions as well as observance of diet, and through 
such more advanced methods as massage, poultices, ene- 
mas and surgical operations.^^ The aim of the physician 
was always represented as an endeavor to drive the demon 
of disease out of the body, or to remove the ban resting 
upon the sufferer through the power of a sorcerer or 
witch. The cure was incidental to the expulsion of the 
demon or to the release from bewitchment. Incantations 
continued, therefore, to form part of the treatment of dis- 
ease and are introduced into texts that are distinctly medi- 
cal in character. Medical treatment is supplementary to 
the use of incantations and of the symbolical rites, such 
as burning effigies of the demons or sorcerers made of 
wax, wood or the like, or drowning them or inflicting 
tortures upon them in the hope of inducing them to aban- 
don their hold on their victims. 

The use of incantations rested upon the wide-spread 
view held by people in a primitive state of culture and 
surviving into advanced periods, of the power supposed 
to reside in words as such, when uttered by the properly 
authorized persons. They generally consisted of a direct 

^ See details in the writer's paper, " The Medicine of the Baby- 
lonians and Assyrians," in the Transactions of the Royal Society of 
Medicine (Section for the History of Medicine) for March, 1914. 

64 



RELIGION OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA 

appeal or command or of a jumble of more or less mystic 
formulae. 

As a specimen of symbolical rite to accompany the 
incantations, a brief extract from a series known as 
Shurpu, i.e., " burning," in which the destruction of the 
demons or sorcerers by fire in various ways forms the 
chief feature, may suffice. 

As this onion is peeled and thrown into the fire, 

burned by the consuming fire, 
Never again to be planted in a garden, 

never again to be harrowed, 
Its root never again to be stuck into the ground, 
Its stalk never to grow, never again to see the light, 
Never again to appear on the table of a god or king, 
So may the crime, pain, anguish, 
Sickness, sighing, sin, misdeed, transgression 

and wrongdoing, 
The sickness in my body, in my flesh and in my limbs, 
Be peeled like this onion. 

On this day may it be burned by the scorching fire, 
May the bar be removed! May I see the light! 

From such a jumble to genuine prayer seems a long 
step, and yet the incantation is virtually a prayer; and 
the interesting feature of the Babylonian cult is the 
process which led to higher and worthier conceptions of 
the gods, despite the fact that the earlier and crude ones 
were retained. 

These higher ideas cluster to a large extent around 
the sun-gods, though moon-go-ds and water deities and 
the great goddess of earth come in for their share. Sha- 
mash, as the sun-god par excellence, becomes the symbol 
of light and justice. He is extolled as the great ''Judge" 
— a title very frequently assigned to him — who brings 
the evil that lurks in dark places to the light, whose rays 
give health, who seeks out the oppressed and the unfor- 
tunate to restore them to honor and happiness. He is 
above all a just judge who takes no bribes, who frees 
the innocent and punishes the wrong-doers, whose aim 
5 65 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

is to let justice and right prevail in the world. A hymn 
to Shamash reads :^^ 

The mighty mountains are filled with thy splendor, 

Thy brightness fills all lands; 

Thou reachest to the mountains, thou gazest upon the entire earth. 

Thou watch est over all the inhabitants of the earth. 

***** if. ^ Hi 

Thou seekest out the transgressor, the utterance of the wicked thou 

rejectest. 
Everyone, whoever he be, is in thy keeping. 
Thou guidest judgment, the imprisoned thou releasest. 
Thou dost give ear to lament, to prayer, invocation and petition. 
The one in anguish cries to thee, 
The weak, the powerless, the oppressed and the wronged. 

While such hymns touch the high-water mark of re- 
ligious compositions, the ideas embodied in them find 
expression in songs of praise and appeal and thanksgiving 
to other gods — to Sin, to Ea, to Marduk and to Ishtar. 
Ea, more particularly, is appealed to in the cult as the god 
of humanity who saves even when others fail. It is he 
who intercedes with the gods when they decide to bring 
on a destructive deluge. Through him a favorite is saved 
from whom a new generation is produced. Ishtar is 
viewed in hymns composed in her honor as the loving 
mother of mankind, and Sin as a merciful father. 

The direct result of these higher conceptions was to 
lead to a deepening of the consciousness of man's prone- 
ness to sin, of the weakness of the flesh in resisting 
temptations. The thought of the justice, mercy and 
kindness of the gods reacts on man^s realization of his 
own responsibility for the sufferings that befall him. In 
illustration of this we have a large number of composi- 
tions in which this consciousness of sin is emphasized. 
The sense of guilt, rather than the misfortune itself — 
generally again sickness of some kind — weighs upon 
the soul of the penitent, who pours out his lament in 

^ For further specimens of hymns and prayers to Shamash and 
to other gods, see Jastrow, Civilizatwn of Babylonia and Assyria, 
p. 465 et seq., and Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, c. xvii. 

66 



RELIGION OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA 

a most pathetic and impressive manner. He is pictured 
as bent down with grief — not daring to look upon the 
face of his god ; he breaks forth in bitter weeping. The 
priest intercedes in his behalf, — 

Because his god and his goddess are angry with him, he cries to thee. 
Turn thy countenance to him, take hold of his hand ! 

The penitent responds: 

Outside of thee there is no guiding divinity, 

Graciously look upon me, and accept my petition ! 

How long yet, O my goddess ! Turn thy countenance to me ! 

Like a dove I moan, satiated with sighs. 

Accompanying these appeals is the confession of sins, 
and what is particularly noteworthy the admission of 
wrong-doing, even though one may not be aware of the 
particular sin for w^hich one has been punished. The 
underlying thought is that the gods are just. Suffering 
is not sent without a cause, even though one be unable 
to discover it. 

IV 

The old, how^ever, survives by the side of the new. 
Older methods of ascertaining the disposition of the gods 
•are retained, despite their inconsistency with the higher 
conceptions of divine government that find an expression 
in hymns and penitential psalms, just as in the midst of 
the finest religious compositions jumbles of primitive in- 
cantations are introduced that bring us at a bound to a 
much lower level. 

In illustration, w^e have throughout all periods of 
Babylonian-Assyrian history the uninterrupted and un- 
limited sway of various divination methods as a means 
of peering into the worship of the gods to see what they 
purpose to bring about and to forestall, if possible, any 
mischief that may be brewn'ng. 

"For further specimens see Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia and 
Assyria, c. xviii, and also Morgenstern, Doctrine of Sin in the Baby- 
lonian Religion (Berlin, 1905). 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

Incantation and divination supplement one another. 
The incantation, as we have seen, forms part of a system 
of remedial treatment; divination falls within the cate- 
gory of preventive measures. The anger of the gods 
might manifest itself in many other ways besides send- 
ing a demon or a sorcerer to plague the body. Natural 
catastrophes, such as failure of crops, a wide-spread 
pestilence, invasion of the land, an earthquake, destruc- 
tive storms, would be symptoms of divine displeasure. In 
such event rulers and people would repair to the tenf)ples, 
to take part in the purification ceremonies conducted by 
the priests to rid the land of uncleanness and, in other 
ways, to remove the cause of divine wrath. Critical 
junctures would arise, foreboding certain events, and at 
such times it would be of prime importance to ascertain 
the mood of the gods. 

There were in the main three methods of divination 
employed in Babylonia and Assyria. The oldest of these 
and the most primitive in character was the inspection of 
the liver of a sacrificial animal — usually a sheep ; secondly, 
the observance of signs in the heavens, and, third, the 
drawing of omens from abnormal phenomena, such as 
anomalies in the young of animals or in infants, move- 
ments of animals, dreams, and from all kinds of happen- 
ings that deviated from normal experiences or contained 
elements of a striking or even merely noticeable char- 
acter. Let us briefly consider these three methods. 

To prognosticate the future by an inspection of a 
sheep's liver seems at first blush to be as irrational a 
method as could well be devised. For all that, hepatos- 
copy, or liver divination, rested on an order of ideas 
which, while primitive, was nevertheless logical. The 
liver as the bloodiest organ in the body was regarded by 
all peoples in a primitive state of culture as the source 
of life, which was naturally associated with the blood. 
The liver was in this stage of belief the seat of the in- 

68 



RELIGION OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA 

tellect and of the emotions — the higher as well as the 
lower. Functions that were at a later juncture in popu- 
lar beliefs divided among three organs of the body — in- 
tellect centring in the brain, the higher emotions in the 
heart and the lower in the liver — ^were at one time con- 
centrated in a single organ — the liver. The liver was, 
therefore, also the soul of the animal, and in the case 
of a sheep offered to a deity the soul or mind of the god 
was supposed to be reflected in the liver of the animal thus 
sanctified. By the observance of the character of the 
lobes, of the two appendices of the liver, of the gall- 
bladder and the cystic and hepatic ducts, as well as by the 
forms of the markings that appear on livers of freshly 
slaughtered animals, all manner of conclusions were 
drawn. Natural association of ideas formed one basis 
for drawing conclusions. Enlarged lobes or ducts would 
be a favorable sign, abnormally small ones unfavorable. 
Peculiarities on the left side of the gall-bladder or of the 
appendices to the liver would be unfavorable to your 
enemy, the same signs on the right side would be un- 
favorable towards you; and so on. Another basis of in- 
terpretation would be furnished by the records of events 
that happened — favorable or unfavorable — on previous 
occasions when certain signs on a liver or certain shapes 
of the markings on the liver had been noted. Post hoc, 
propter hoc is a fundamental principle in all systems of 
divination. A single occurrence would furnish a criterion 
for the future. An elaborate scheme of liver interpreta- 
tion was thus evolved which, set forth in handbooks, has 
co-me down to us among the remains of Babylonian- 
Assyrian religious literature. Through such interpreta- 
tion of signs on the liver it was possible at any moment 
by the sacrifice of a sheep/ to ascertain whether the 
moment was auspicious for going to battle, for under- 
taking a journey, for laying the foundation of a temple, 
for planting, and what not. If the signs or a majority 

69 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

of them were favorable, it would indicate that the gods 
were well disposed. If, however, the signs were un- 
favorable, it portended that the god was angry and must 
be propitiated before one could venture on any under- 
taking, no matter of what nature. 

A second form of divination, also playing an impor- 
tant part in the practical exercise of the religion, involved 
the observation of phenomena in the heavens. In this 
case the sign was forced upon one's attention — not de- 
liberately sought out as in the case of liver divination. 
Astrology, which resulted from this form of involuntary 
divination as we might designate it, was also of a far 
higher order, for it rested upon the identification of all 
the heavenly bodies — sun, moon, the planets, and the 
prominent stars — with the gods, irrespective of the orig- 
inal character of these gods. The five planets were 
identified with five of the chief deities, Jupiter with 
Marduk, Saturn with Ninib, IMercury with Nebo, Mars 
with Nergal, and Venus with the goddess Ishtar. The 
theo-ry underlying the endeavor to prognosticate the fu- 
[ture from the appearance of the sun, moon, and planets, 
jfrom phenomena observed in connection with their posi- 
tion and their movements in the heavens, was the belief 
in a correspondence between conditions existing in the 
heavens and events on earth. All happenings below being 
ascribed to the gods, the phenomena to be observed in 
the heavens were interpreted as the activity of the gods 
preparing future events. Observation of the heavens, 
afforded a peep into the worship of the gods, and if one 
could see what they were doing, one could conclude what 
was going to happen as the outcome of their activity. 
In contrast to liver divination which rested on primitive 
beliefs, astrology was a form of divination that resulted 
from an intellectual advance which led man to the study 
of movements in the heavens. Astrology was thus an 
outcome of the science of the day, though it developed 

70 



RELIGION OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA 

into a pseudo-science. Even when astronomy arose as 
an independent and purely scientific study, astrology or 
the interpretation of heavenly phenomena with reference 
to man's condition and fate on earth continued to be 
cultivated; and it was not till we reach the threshold 
of modern science that the partnership between the two is 
dissolved. Greek and mediaeval astrology reverts to the 
system evolved in the Babylonian temples for connecting 
the activities of the gods in heaven with events on earth 
directly affecting man's welfare. 

This system was again based as in the case of liver 
divination on two leading principles, (i) association of 
ideas, (2) observation of what actually happened, fol- 
lowing upon certain phenomena in the heavens, or upon 
the appearance and relative position to one another of 
the heavenly bodies — more particularly of the moon and 
the five planets. So, for example, obscurations of the 
moon or of a part of it were by a natural association gen- 
erally regarded as unfavorable signs. The " transition ** 
periods in the phases of the moon were particularly noted. 
Since down to the neo-Babylonian period the Babylon- 
ians had no means of calculating the exact period of the 
appearance of the new moon or of the time of full moon 
or of the disappearance of the moon at the end of each 
month, what to a people depending entirely upon em- 
pirical observation seemed a too early or too belated ap- 
pearance of the new crescent or of the full moon or of its 
disappearance at the end of the month would assume great 
importance. Again, by a natural association of ideas, a 
too early or a too belated appearance or disappearance 
would be on the whole unfavorable, while the normal or 
expected would be favorable. The same was true with the 
movements of the planets and more particularly their ap- 
pearance at any given moment — whether bright or dull, as 
well as their exact position in the heavens. In the case of 
the sun and moon there were other kinds of phenomena, 

71 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

such as halos, spots, peculiar colors and various forms 
of obscurations, besides actual eclipses. The sphere of 
observation was extended to the formation and color of 
the clouds, to the character of storms, to the number of 
thunderclaps in a storm, to the course and the brilliancy 
of lightning flashes, to rainbows and much more of the 
like. In time the field of observation thus grew into 
enormous proportions, as is shown by the hundreds upon 
hundreds of clay tablets grouped into series and detailing 
in a more or less methodical arrangement all kinds of 
phenomena with the interpretation attached. ^^ 

A third miscellaneous division of the almost boundless 
field of divination was formed by the importance attached 
to all manner of striking and abnormal phenomena in 
the case of anomalies, in infants or animals, at the time 
of birth, ^^ to the flight of birds, to the movements of ser- 
pents, dogs, sheep, swine, ravens, locusts, roaches, etc., to 
strange mishaps and encounters, to dreams, to the action 
of flames. In short, almost any occurrence that deviated 
from the normal was regarded as an omen; it portended 
something and it was the business of the diviner to whom 
people would come with their inquiries to be ready with 
an interpretation. The upshot was that the people felt 
themselves hemmed in by the many superstitions to which 
they clung, though it must be borne in mind that not all 
of the vast territory of divination lore was embodied in 
the official cult. This was restricted to liver divination, 
to astrology and in some measure to dreams and ex- 
traordinary happenings, which had a bearing on the gen- 
eral welfare. The interpretations in all such cases bore 
on matters of general concern, the crops, pestilence, re- 
bellion, invasion and defeat. Only in so far as what 
happened to the king or to members of the royal family 

^'See for copious specimens in the author's (German) work, Die 
Religion Babvloniens und Assyriens, vol. ii, c. xix-xx. 

"See a monograph by the writer, "Babylonian-Assyrian Birth 
Omens and their Cultural Significance" (Giessen, 1914). 

72 



RELIGION OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA 

was looked upon as an omen for the country at large 
because of the special position accorded to the rulers by 
virtue of their standing closer to the gods than the rest 
of the population, did the individual play any part in the 
official cult. 

Included in the cult was the observation of numerous 
festivals in honor of the gods. Each divinity appears to 
have had a series of special days during the year set aside 
for one reason or the other, on which occasions sacrifices 
would be offered in the temples, accompanied by the 
singing of hymns or the recital of litanies. The festivals 
were not always joyous in character. Indeed, there was 
to most of them an undercurrent of sombreness. Com- 
ing usually at transition periods, the gods were implored 
to be favorably disposed in the impending seasonal 
changes. This sombre character was naturally more pro- 
nounced when misfortune threatened. 

If, in conclusion, the question be raised as to the influ- 
ence which the religion with its elaborate form of divina- 
tion, with its variegated incantation ritual, its festivals 
and special occasions, its days of contrition and days of 
thanksgiving, exercised on the life of the people, the gen- 
eral verdict must be given that the ethical ideals, as voiced 
in the extensive religious literature, in the myths of which 
we have a considerable number,^^ in creation and deluge 
tales,^^ in the exploits of heroes, human but with semi- 
divine traits,^" are relatively high. Obedience to the gods 
led to placing the emphasis on fair dealings with one's 
fellows. Reverence for the superior powers upon whose 
favor the general as well as the individual welfare de- 
pended entailed, as a corollary, respect for the laws de- 
veloped for the government of the country, albeit that the 

'-^ See Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, c. xxiv. 

" See Jastrow, Civilization of Babylonia and Assyria, pp. 427-452. 

" See Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, c. xxiii, for 
an analysis of the Gilgsmesh Epic — the chief literary production of 
Babylonia. 

7Z 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

people had little direct share in such government, which 
remained autocratic to the latest period. The gods, 
though often depicted as arbitrary, yet on the whole 
appear to have had a real concern for the welfare of 
humanity. Ea is the protector of himianity even against 
the wilfulness of gods, while Shamash, the sun-god, as 
we have seen, becomes a synonym of right and justice. 
The rulers themselves set the example to their sub- 
jects. Hammurapi knows of no higher ambition than 
to become celebrated for all times as a ** father " to his 
people. He codifies the laws to govern his people, in 
order, as he says, '* that the strong may not oppress the 
weak, that the innocent may be protected against violence 
and that the man with a righteous cause may secure 
justice." ^^ Business practices were based on a spirit of 
fairness and family relationships were regulated accord- 
ing to principles of mutual helpfulness. Even the Assy- 
rian rulers who were most ruthless in their ambition for 
conquests and insatiable in their lust of power pride 
themselves upon having maintained the laws providing 
protection to their subjects. We have ethical precepts ^^ 
— little collections of ethical sayings — which inculcate 
kindness, fidelity, truthfulness as the highest virtues by 
the side of piety and devotion to the gods. The hymns 
and penitential songs, as well as the prayers attached to 
the inscriptions of the rulers, breathe this same ethical 
spirit, even while asking the superior powers for purely 
material blessings. On the whole, the verdict must be 
given that the religion of the Babylonians and Assyrians 
while never rising to any genuine spirituality and failing 
to lead to any relationship between man and the gods 
whom he worshiped other than that of a "give and 

" See the introduction to the code in R. F. Harper's translation, 
The Code of Hammurapi, and the analysis in Jastrow, Civilization 
of Babylonia and Assyria, pp. 283-315. 

"See the specimen in Jastrow, Civilisation of Babylonia and 
Assyria, p. 464 et seq. 

74 



RELIGION OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA 

take " compact, expecting divine favor in return for 
homage to the gods and punctilious performance of rites 
and the offering of tribute, yet acted as a spur towards 
unfolding the best in human nature. We cannot go so 
far as to say that ethics was the sovereign force in the 
religion, but the beliefs and practices of the people had 
as their outcome the creation of equitable standards of 
life, with respect for law, fair dealings with one's fel- 
lows, reverence for the gods, kindness towards the poor 
and consideration for the weak, as among the duties which 
were to be illustrated in daily conduct. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Morris Jastrow, Jr.: The Civilization of Babylonia and Assyria 
(Philadelphia, 1915). Chapters on the Excavations, the Decipher- 
ment of Cuneiform Inscriptions, on the History and Religion 
of Babylonia and Assyria, on Law, Commerce and Art, with 
copious specimens of Babylonian art and literature. 

Morris Jastrow, Jr. : Religion of Babylonia and Assyria (Boston, 
1898). 

Morris Jastrow, Jr. : Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in 
Babylonia and Assyria (New York, 1911). Illustrated, and with 
translations of Babylonian religious texts interspersed. 

G. A. Barton: Religions of the World, chap. 2 (Chicago, 1917.) 

R. W. Rogers : History of Babylonia and Assyria (6th ed., New 
York, 1915). 2 vols. Illustrated. 

•L. W. King: History of Sumer and Akkad (London, 1910). Illus- 
trated. 

L. W. King: History of Babylon (London, 1915). Illustrated. 

R. F. Harper, Ed.: Assyriatt and Babylonian Literature (New York, 
1901). 

R. W. Rogers : Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament (New 
York, 1912). Contains many translations of Historical and 
Religious texts of Babylonia and Assyria. 



75 



CHAPTER IV 

THE HEBREW RELIGION 
BY JAMES A. MONTGOMERY 

A FAR-OFF land near the end of the world — that is the 
tradition we have received from our fathers of the region 
where was born the religion of the Hebrews, which in its 
own right as well as the mother of our Western religion 
peculiarly claims the student's attention. Out of the hazy 
East comes the Jew, then the Christ, — ^they settle in the 
West, and the land of their nativity fades from sight. 
Only loosely and for a few centuries attached to the 
world of Hellenic-Roman civilization, it disappears in the 
limbo of the Orient. Apart from the scanty history, or 
tradition, or legend, contained in its sacred books, the 
oblivion of the human mind and the rack of ages have 
covered up the history of that sacred land and as well 
of the great empires among which it nested. " God was 
pleased to reveal himself to the Jew first," so the Gentile 
convert was taught, but in a land and circumstances so 
strange that the revelation appeared sole and unique. No 
science could be made out of that sacred history, for there 
were no similars with which to compare it. 

Gradually since the 17th century, when Biblical 
scholarship and oriental philology began to attack the 
secrets of the Orient, the veil has been gradually re- 
moved. In our own time it has been literally rent. The 
religion of the Old Testament stands forth as one of 
many great religions or religious systems which were 
its neighbors and with which it vied. The mist in which 
moved its actors, at least down to the time of Cyrus, 
has been dispelled, and Abraham, Moses, David and the 
Prophets no longer) walk the stage alone. We have 

76 



THE HEBREW RELIGION 

discovered the setting for the picture, or rather where 
once only a few lonely personce dramatis appeared, now 
the stage is crowded with the actors of the tremendous 
drama of the ancient Orient. We can study the history 
of that religion from outside, apart from its own authori- 
tative sources, with documents which parallel them, which 
in their contemporaneity often far excel them in historic 
fact. The Old Testament religion has been confronted 
with its ancient peers, we can compare them together, 
appreciate their relative values, mark their interplay and 
mutual influences. We might think we were nigh to rob 
it of its secret and explain it all, but as in the advance 
of all true science with each discovery made we only 
uncover a greater mystery. 

Let us place the geography of that ancient religion. 
It arose in the northwest corner of Arabia and developed 
in the adjacent land of Palestine, a country about the 
fourth of the size of Pennsylvania. Not far away, to 
the west, was Egypt with its hoary civilization and fasci- 
nating religion. Farther to the east were the empires of 
the Euphrates valley, whose civilization and imperium 
.dominated the land at many epochs for two millenniums. 
Over the sea was the ^gean civilization, the mother of 
the Hellenic arts, which now we date as far back as 3000 
B.C., and whose peoples came into contact with the Pales- 
tinians before the Hebrews invaded the land. With the 
settlement of the ^gean Philistines in Canaan began the 
eternal conflict of Greek and Hebrew. From the far 
north stretched the arms of the mighty Hittite empire, 
whose advance guards reached as far as Jerusalem and 
Hebron. At the back of this world of competing and 
eager young civilizations lay the womb of Arabia, which 
sent forth its swarms of splendid desert sons to conquer 
and be conquered by those advanced civilizations. Un- 
named hordes came out thence, Canaanites, Amorites, 
Hebrews, Aramaeans, later the Minaeans and Sabseans 

n 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

of great native empires in the far south of the land, all 
these the precursors of that greatest of Arab invasions 
which was stimulated by Mohammed. Then when the 
Hebrews are settled in the land they come into contact 
with the commercial Phoenicians on the coast and the 
opulent and martial Aramaean states to the north, like 
Damascus. There follows the sweeping of the great 
empires over these lands, of the Assyrian, the Baby- 
lonian, the Persian, each with its own characteristic. 
Finally came the Greek conquest or rather the overflow- 
ing of the Greek civilization, which gave more to and 
took more from that religion than did any of its prede- 
cessors. It is a strange fact that none of those kindred 
Semitic religions, but an alien civilization from the west, 
became the solvent for the best in the religion of the 
Hebrews. 

What produced this religion in that welter of the 
ancient Semitic world? Was it only a precipitate of the 
best in one of the great religious systems of antiquity— 
of Egypt, as philosophers of the i8th century proposed, 
or of Babylon, as some modern scholars dogmatically 
claim ? Or was it chance commingling of certain elements 
in that one spot, the comparatively unimportant land of 
Palestine, which fortuitously produced the supreme 
product of ancient oriental religion? Was it a native 
characteristic — wherein we might run the risk of making 
Kenan's mistake in claiming that the Semites were natu- 
rally monotheistic ? Or was it a great personality or series 
of great personalities who experienced spiritual truth in 
their hearts and lives and enforced it upon an unwilling 
people — as the Old Testament itself holds? 

This problem I will not seek to unravel, although I 
have my prejudices. The purpose of this course is not 
so much to give the history of the great religions as to 
present their great contents, especially as these have had 
effect and value in the world. But the survey of Israel's 

78 



THE HEBREW RELIGION 

geographical and historical place in the world teaches this, 
that the religion of the Hebrew from an early point in 
its development had obtained a definite place in his con- 
sciousness which made it a summum honum. And fur- 
ther, his relations in the midst of those ancient empires 
and civilizations are to be studied not only in the light 
of the amalgamations which he may have effected with 
other systems of thought, but rather in the obstinate 
opposition which he ever presented to them. With all 
their modifying influences, the part of those other civili- 
zations and religions is to be compared with the strokes 
upon the blade lying on the anvil ; they tried it out, tested 
it, gave it its edge. We do not have to go to very ancient 
history to remark this. The story of the Maccabaean 
revolt against Hellenism, the most glorious episode in 
Hebrew history, shows how, despite all the subtle influ- 
ences of fascinating Hellenism, when the danger was 
apprehended, the Hebrew religion reacted. It gave the 
world the finest thing its politics has ever seen, the man 
of religious conscience refusing to worship the deity of 
the state and insisting on worshiping the God of his heart 
alone. Some deep-ingrained conviction, originated and 
developed however we may surmise, along with an ethical 
obstinacy which supported that conviction even to death, 
was the characteristic of the Hebrew religion. Later 
religions have shown like tendencies, although rarely with 
such a permanent history. This quality has given to mod- 
ern minds a harsh aspect to the Hebrew religion, espe- 
cially to the loose thinking and light living of us mod- 
ems. The fantastic systems of Eg}^pt and Babylonia and 
the mythologies of Greece have been more agreeable to 
philosophic and aesthetic tastes; they have perished ex- 
cept so far as they have been sublimated into poetry. 
But the idea of a definite conviction in religion, with the 
grim ethical purpose to live and die by it, that is the con- 
tribution of the Hebrew religion to the world. Within 

79 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

the sphere of our western civilization only one other 
religion, excepting Israel's daughter Christianity, has 
shown the like characteristic : the religion of Mohammed. 
And his religion was born in the same region as that of 
Moses, in the deserts of western Arabia. If we inquire 
for geographical and ethnical causes for these two great 
phenomena of religion, we are driven back to Sinai and 
the wastes about Mecca, and to some stock of people 
morally capable of possession by a great religious enthu- 
siasm. 

There is not time in these two lectures to present the 
Hebrew religion within each of the successive phases and 
to examine their connecting links. Further, I feel that 
with the many excellent books on the subject accessible 
to the layman, many coming from the best hands, it 
would be tedious to reader and writer to repeat what 
must be largely commonplace. I will indicate the broad 
divisions of the history, and then pursue a few chapters 
of the religion, noticing where necessary the historical 
development. This method involves our treating the re- 
sults at the end of the process rather than the process 
itself; it will station us largely in the age of the Prophets 
of the Assyrian period, or in the Post-exilic age when 
theology and cult were permanently institutionalized. We 
shall have to take the Old Testament as it stands as the 
authoritative pronouncement upon itself by the Hebrew 
religion, and largely avoid the problems of origins and 
criticism. But this summary procedure is inevitable in a 
brief sketch of any historical institution. Greece is the 
age of Pericles, and Rome the days of the end of the 
Republic and the rise of the Empire. Only when a 
people has expressed itself in final conscious form of 
politics, art and religion can it exert its influence on 
others and pass on its hard-won heritage. 

My broad divisions are as follows : 

(i) The Mosaic Age, to about 750 B.C. 

80 



THE HEBREW RELIGION 

(2) The Age of the Prophets, to the destruction of 
Jerusalem, 586 b.c. 

(3) The Post-exilic Period, into the first century a.d. 
Some notes are necessary on this summary division. 

The Mosaic Age includes the prehistoric period, repre- 
sented by the patriarchal traditions, while the age after 
Moses is naturally subdivided by the settlement in Canaan, 
about 1200 B.C., and the rise of the monarchy, about 1000 
B.C. The Post-exilic Age has a momentous epoch in 
Alexander's conquest, 332 B.C., and the following era may 
be called the Hellenistic Age. 

Defence is to be made for my carrying on the history 
of the Hebrew religion into the first Christian century. 
It transgresses the traditional view that the Old Testa- 
ment was codified by Ezra in the 5th century, an almost 
dogma which has been explicitly or implicitly accepted 
by Judaism and by Christendom, especially in the Protest- 
ant wing. But the Old Testament Scriptures themselves 
come down into the 2d century B.C. ; the Book of Daniel, 
165 B.C., and Ecclesiastes are typical of the characteristic 
development of Judaism in the late Hellenistic period, 
the former of eschatology, the most striking offshoot of 
late Jewish theology, the latter a product of one school 
of thought which orthodox Pharisaism drove out. But 
we must not stop with that 2d century. The history of 
an institution demands that it be carried on to the end 
or until the epoch when fresh developments require a new 
scientific division. And unless we leave two centuries of 
remarkable religious experience hanging unattached in 
the air, our history finds its goal in the first Christian 
century, when the rise of the Christian Church, and the 
fall of Jerusalem, a.d. 70, radically changed the fate and 
the constitution of Israel. From this point we have the 
histories of Christianity and of Judaism. Not that there 
is any consciousness in Judaism of a break at any of these 
epochs, but scientific distinction requires of us a definite 
6 81 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

conclusion, where a beginning may be made by subsequent 
historical science. Accordingly, the late Judaistic litera- 
ture must be taken into accotmt; a history of the Hebrew 
religion must include the Apocrypha of the Christian 
Biblical canons, the Apocalyptic literature, the writings of 
Philo which fed Christian theology, and the beginnings 
of the rabbinical literature. 

I proceed to sketch some distinctive features of the 
Hebrew religion. In view of the summary character of 
this course I develop my theme from the chief centres of 
gravity. 

I. The God of the Hebrew Religion 
The Hollander scholar Kuenen invented the term 
" Ethical Monotheism '' as descriptive of the character- 
istic of the religion of the Prophets. That is, the God 
was one and w^as an ethical being, and there was neces- 
sary relation between the unity and the moral character. 
This term, still largely employed, is absolutely inadequate. 
The History of Religion runs the same danger that 
wrecked much of the old dogmatic theology in trying to 
present such a religion as that of the Bible in arid philo- 
sophical terms. For the Hebrew Deity did not become 
one in the sense of aloneness, as modern Theism or Deism 
requires, until the age of the Exile; while even after 
that period there were survivals and revivals of the older 
plurality or multiformity of deity, which condition 
Hebrew theology until at least the schism of the Christian 
Church, while it persisted later in Judaism in the form of 
Kabbalism. Nor, with all appreciation of the ethical 
character of the God of the Hebrews, is it correct to 
absolute ethics or to comparative Semitic religion to 
regard his ethical character, except in degree, as one of 
his absolute and unique differentia. When we think of 
the morality of the deities of paganism, we too spontane- 
ously call up the fascinating but often morally degenerate 



THE HEBREW RELIGION 

gods of Greek mythology, with which creatures of the 
poetic fancy the stern, moral deities of the Semites had 
little in common. In consequence of the undue stress 
laid upon the ethical note in the character of the Hebrew 
God, the scholarship subsequent to Kuenen has been 
almost startled by the lofty ethical characteristics of the 
Babylonian deities, as presented in hymns and litanies, 
even in such a legal document as the Code Hammurapi. 
The fallacy of the science of religion has lain in attempt- 
ing, in consonance with modern thought, to make religion 
a by-product of ethics. 

The unique characteristic of the God of the Hebrews 
is his intense personality. In part this is expressed in cer- 
tain terms and phrases ; thus he is the Living God. There 
is the divine insistence on his ego, as in the refrain of 
one of the Levitical Codes, " I am Yahwe,'* ^ or in the 
Second Isaiah, of the 6th century, " I am He," " I am 
Yahwe,*' " There is none other than He." There is the 
divine jealousy which brooks no other gods, not so much 
on the ground that they do not exist but for the self- 
assertive egotism which will stand the company of no 
others. But the unique personality of Yahwe appears 
most strikingly in the Old Testament record of his 
divine revelation through history. This is not so much 
a revelation of things about a God, a creed, a metaphysics, 
but the revelation primarily of a person, knowledge of 
whom will reveal his character and commands. We learn 
nothing about Yahwe in the traditions of his appearance 
to Moses in Ex. 3 and 6, only know that a Deity has re- 
vealed himself. Indeed, the substance of the revelation 
lies in his name, which to the Semitic mind was the symbol 

*For this pronunciation of the Divine Name, with accent on 
the last syllable, as generally accepted by modern scholars, see Enc. 
Biblica, col. 332of . The current " Jehovah " is a fairly modern bar- 
barous formation, but pre- Protestant; see G. F. Moore, in American 
Journal of Theology, 1908, 34ff, and American Journal of Semitic 
Languages and Literatures, 25:3126?. 

83 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

and vehicle of personality, '' I am Yahwe." The people 
learn of him further not as the One or the Righteous God 
but as the Saving God. In one sense the Old Testament 
is reticent in describing his characteristics, and hence per- 
haps in part the difficulty modern thought feels in analyz- 
ing him in categories. On the other hand, that volume 
lays its stress upon his self -revelation through history — 
always in a personal way — to Abraham, Moses, the 
Prophets, Priests and Apocalyptists ; the accent is rather 
upon how he revealed himself than what he revealed, 
as though the discovery of his person was the important 
thing. 

This characteristic of personality appears peculiarly 
in his relation to his people. He is first of all a tribal 
God, of that I have no question, perhaps only a god of 
a family, perhaps, with one theory an alien God whose 
acquaintance was made by chance in the desert. And he 
remains always a deity particularistic in his relations, he 
is the God of Israel quite as much as the Creator and God 
of the whole world. His full name is '' Yahwe of Hosts, 
the God of Israel." This particularism, which offends 
our modern cosmopolitanism, is an expression of his es- 
sential personality. It is a limitation, we say, on the pure 
idea of God, but a limitation which is necessary to the 
idea of the personal. For it is of the essence of per- 
sonality that it is independent of other personalities, inde- 
pendent and self -existent, and can only come into contact 
with other persons through acts of the will and of desire. 
It is a mistake to try to push the loftiest of the Prophets 
to a more abstract idea of his person. Amos, who states 
Yahwe's control of the world as strongly as any, and 
perhaps more clearly {e.g., cc. 1-2; 9:7), nevertheless 
holds to the divine particularism. **You alone," he says for 
his God, " have I known of all the races of the earth." 
For the loftiest of the theologians, the Second Isaiah (Is. 
40-66), Israel was Yahwe's Servant, alone admitted to 

84 



THE HEBREW RELIGION 

the arcana of his knowledge and mysteries, hence alone 
furnished to preach his gospel to the world. 

From a tribal God he becomes a national God: his 
relationship remains a personal one, now to all Israel. 
To the people grown into a nation, the faraway question 
of the God of the whole world still lies in the academic 
field. There are early apperceptions of his cosmic and 
universal character, but these, on the basis of compara- 
tive religion, we must take with a caution, for the same 
powers are attributed by the pious Babylonian to many 
a god, almost in the same breath. And to avoid pro- 
longed argument, I must avoid depending on these early 
assertions. The reform of the religion of Northern 
Israel, known under Elijah's name, in the 9th century, 
consisted only in the expurgation of the intruded worship 
of a foreign deity. The Prophets of the 8th and 7th 
centuries concerned themselves with the elimination of the 
polytheistic and immoral Baalism of Canaan. Their 
interest lay in establishing him as sole deity for Israel, 
and that meant on Palestinian soil, for other than Yahwe's 
soil was unclean and profane, unconsecrated by his pres- 
ence {e.g., Amos, 7 : 17). The dispersion of the Exile and 
the spiritual discovery of their God's presence in unclean 
lands, developing the implications rather than explicit 
doctrines of the Prophets, gave Israel its first absolute idea 
of the World-God. The Church after the Exile appears 
to our taste to have sadly degenerated from the Prophets 
by its accent on holiness. Yet it remained true to the 
core of Israel's spiritual development, because that idea 
of holiness was an expression of the personality of God 
and of Israel's sole intimacy with him. For the idea of 
holiness is not only a taboo doctrine; it may fall into 
the utter mechanical and become magic, but it is con- 
sonant with the highest spiritual religion. To the devout 
mind holiness is the aura of the divine presence, into 
which only the consecrated can enter. The New Testa- 

85 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

ment word hagios, "holy, saint," retains the antique 
notion, and it is not there primarily an ethical term. 

Further, this characteristic of personality appears not 
merely in the relation of Yahwe to the nation as a whole, 
which relation must have remained psychologically im- 
personal, except so far as it was mediated by the officers 
of religion, king and seer and priest. From the beginning 
to the end of the Old Testament we have the stories of 
the divine communication with persons apart from sacred 
office. Israel is not descended from a race of priests — 
as the Epistle to the Hebrews makes the point ; Abraham 
was an old-fashioned Sheich. That Moses possessed his 
revelation through some other right than birth is pre- 
sented by the fiction of the Scriptures that the hierarchy 
was descended not from him but his brother. Only two 
kings appear as organs of revelation, David and Solo- 
mon, although the royal right thereto, as in the pagan 
religions, was doubtless professionally claimed; this ap- 
pears from the Royal Psalms and in the pretensions of 
Simon Maccabee. But Yahwe worked through grace not 
by privilege, even as in the Patriarchal history he chose 
the younger sons by his arbitrary choice. He spoke by 
the child Samuel to the priest Eli; he took Amos from 
following the sheep, and the priest Jeremiah when he was 
still too young to officiate and one of a degraded family. 
It is only with the Exile that the priest becomes the 
prophet, and then comes the decadence of prophecy. But 
even after this the priest is replaced by the authority 
of the Wise Man and then of the Rabbi, and Judaism 
still is ruled by the intellectuals of the democracy. 
The mediation of the Hebrew religion has been made 
through revelation to the individual — into which no 
science can pry. 

This unique personal relation with Israel, whose 
dogma was, *' Him alone shalt thou serve,'* is the founda- 
tion of Israel's monotheism. That result sprang out of 

86 



THE HEBREW RELIGION 

Israel's spiritual experience with its one God, not from 
a philosophical or political monism, as has been the his- 
tory with henotheisms and monotheisms. What we may 
call the credal statements of Israel's faith show its con- 
trast with anything like absolute monotheism, and this 
difference must be recognized in order to avoid the ap- 
parent antinomies of Hebrew theology. Compare the 
First Commandment of the Decalogue, " Thou shalt have 
no other gods but me," with the Mohammedan con- 
fession, *' There is no God but God," and you observe 
the lack of absolute monotheism in the Hebrew religion. 
To this day the complete statement of Israel's faith is 
the so-K:alled Shema, " Hear, O Israel : Yahwe thy God 
is one Yahwe " (Deut. 6:4), but this was in its origin the 
denial of the local Baalism of Canaan which divided the 
national God into as many deities as there were local 
shrines — like the competitive Madonnas of a Latin coun- 
try ; so Jeremiah indignantly exclaimed : " According to 
the number of thy cities are thy gods, O Judah " ( Jer. 
2:28). Yet Israel's over-much religiousness was ad- 
dressed to Yahwe. 

Yahwe indeed appears as the creator of the Kosmos, 
but that, as I have said, cannot be too far pressed as an 
assertion of monotheism. Numerous passages reveal 
the admission of other gods and assume the legitimacy 
of their worship in .their own lands. David reproaches 
Saul for driving him into foreign lands to worship strange 
gods. Elijah permits the Syrian Naaman to worship 
Ramman of Damascus, and the latter takes with him 
loads of earth from Yahwe's soil to worship withal the 
Hebrew God. The one thing noticeable is that Yahwe 
has no social relationships with other divine peers. But 
solitary as to divine peers, he is by no means a lonely 
God. With him are associated the Bef\£ Elohim, the Sons 
of God, who are not angels in the Christian sense of the 
word, but divinities, as the name implies, members of 

87 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

the category of deity over against creatures. These 
beings appear not only in such a thorough-going myth 
as that of their cohabitation with human women, " the 
daughters of men" (Gen. 6), but all through the Scrip- 
tures as God's attendant court. With them he consults 
as upon man's creation. ''* Let us make man in our own 
image," and over man's presumption in building the sik- 
kiirat of Babylon: " Let us go down and confound their 
language" (Gen. 1:26; 11:7). This heavenly court, 
" the host of heaven," is revealed to the prophet Micaiah, 
among them the Spirit of Lying, who is to seduce the 
prophets of Ahab (I Ki. 22: iQff). The book of Job 
opens with a similar scene when the Sons of God report 
to him like satraps or the Eye of the King to a Persian 
monarch (cf. Zech. i: yff). In Second Isaiah we do 
find practically absolute monotheism, but the process of 
Israel's conversion to the denial of pol3^heism seems to 
have been largely based upon the absurdity of idol wor- 
ship. In fact, after the Exile, and particularly in the 
Greek age, in some part, no doubt, under Greek influ- 
ence, there is a recrudescence of the inherited notion of 
the Sons of God. The monotheism that was possible 
even under the strain of the Babylonian conquest could 
not maintain itself absolutely with the tremendous vision 
of the world empire which Alexander instituted. The 
fates of the innumerable peoples, and with the growth 
of science the manifold and contradictory forces of the 
world, could not be adequately explained from science by 
monism. The doctrine of Princes (Dan. io:2of), of 
Angels (e.g., the Apocalyptic literature), of the innumer- 
able spirits of nature (Ps. 148: the Benedicite in the 
Greek of Daniel 3)— which are not simply to be poetically 
interpreted any more than the Greek nature divinities— 
this whole development was not altogether alien to He- 
brew thought. The one abiding principle was that no 



THE HEBREW RELIGION 

worship should be rendered by Israel to this heavenly 
host (Deut. 4: 19; cf the Greek of 32:8). 

Still more interesting to us because of its relations 
with many striking phases of philosophy, with Greek and 
Christian theology, Gnosticism, Neo-Platonism, Jewish 
Kabbalism, was the belief, under various forms, in in- 
termediate essences, hypostases, which mediated between 
the spiritual and intangible Deity and the world of matter. 
Such hypostatizations are ancient in Hebrew thought. It 
appears classically in the Angel of Yahwe (never an 
angel in our sense), who is the manifestation form of 
Deity for sight and sound in the older traditions. He 
is not a distinct personality, and his vagueness is due to 
the grappling with a heavy problem, that of God's rela- 
tion with the world. We might think of the Angel of 
Yahwe as the composition with the ancient polytheistic 
legends, at the same time we know of like species of 
thought in the other Semitic religions which never at- 
tained to monotheism but are striving after a certain 
systematization in theology. So the Angel of Bel (Mal- 
'ak-Bel) appears as a Palmyrene deity. And in both the 
.Phoenician and the Hebrew religion we have the Face 
of God, temporarily hypostatized in the latter, personified 
in a separate deity in the former. What the Face, Pro- 
sopon, implied is clear when we recall that it became 
the term for the Persons of the Christian Trinity. The 
" Name " is another hypostasis ; he " lodged his Name 
in Jerusalem." 

In the Hellenistic age we find a concept of an inter- 
mediate hypostasis congruous to the new world of 
thought, that of Wisdom, e.g., Proverbs, 8, Book of 
Wisdom, 7 : 22ff. Theological students dispute whether 
we have here more hypostatization or more personifica- 
tion or personalization ; the purpose of the concept is evi- 
dent. A more generally Semitic concept of an interme- 
diate to the divine action upon the world is that of the 

89 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

Word; it can be traced back into the Babylonian and 
Old Arabic religions. In this concept Hebrew thought 
shared catholicly with Stoicism : its great Greek philoso- 
pher Philo developed it with puzzling ambiguity in his 
treatises, and laid the foundations, along with his school 
of thought, to the Christian doctrine of the Logos. In 
a more prosaic way the Jewish Targums mediate all 
the divine relations to the world by the Memra, the 
Word of the Lord. Such were the metaphysical possi- 
bilities of the Hebrew idea of the one God. 

I have made this long excursion on the Hebrew idea 
of Deity in order to point out the peculiar quality of its 
monotheism. It was not attained by abstraction, as was 
the Mohammedan monotheism; nor did it proceed 
through a political henotheism to a supreme monarchy 
of one god, as in the ancient empires. The monism of 
the Hebrew faith was practical, experimental, economical ; 
it lay in the unique personal relation of Israel to its God. 
He was one to them, to their obedience and affection, 
and became ultimately to their intellect the only one. He 
saved them at the Red Sea ; he marched with them from 
his home on Sinai; he brought them into the promised 
land, where he was a stranger like them; he made them 
a nation and was their monarch, expecting their sole ser- 
vice as monarchs are wont to do, but with a passion and 
jealousy which no gods of paganism ever affected. When 
the vision of the larger Kosmos snatched them out of 
their provincialism in the coming cataclysm from Assyria, 
their seers had the vision to hold that the same God 
would be true to them if they were true to him. In fact, 
their vision preceded historical experience, which proves 
that religious logic was working on ancient principles. It 
was a tremendous stretch of faith which shocked Israel's 
provincialism even as it challenged the nations and re- 
ligions of the world. But the lesson was driven home 
deep enough into the heart of the people so that they 

90 



THE HEBREW RELIGION 

withstood the shock of the Exile — the one known case 
of the survival of a conquered and transported people 
preserving and purifying its religion in ancient history. 
The fall of Babylon, the Return, the survival of the 
remnant in the dark ages that followed, the triumph over 
the deadly persecution of Hellenism for faith's sake, 
corroborated and hardened the faith that stood the early 
tests. Wherever they went, whatever their experiences, 
Yahwe remained their God. It was the result of this 
experience that brought them to the dogmatic assertion 
of him as the God of the whole world. 

There seem to have existed ancient elements in this 
faith in their particularistic God which tended to the 
resultant monotheism. To worship only the tribal gods 
was practically the rule of ancient communities. These 
wandered rarely into the folds of other gods. But the 
rise of nations and empires and the establishment of 
closer social contact among peoples introduced syncretism. 
It was the common logic that a traveller or sojourner in 
a foreign land should worship its gods. But from the 
beginning of Israel's religious history there appears to 
have been an exclusive demand made upon their faith 
by their God. Lesser deities were associated with him 
in popular cults, this development occurred at times in 
Jerusalem, but he never submitted to becoming a member 
of a pantheon, one of many gods.^ Even when David 
cries that he is being driven into foreign lands to serve 
strange gods, there is expressed his heart's pang that he 
must abandon Yahwe. In some way, and why not by the 
Moses of tradition — for great religions have always per- 
sonal founders — the exclusiveness of Yahwe in his rela- 
tion to Israel was pressed in upon them. There may 
have been some theological economy in the old Arabian 

'In the recently discovered papyri of the Jewish colony at 
Elephantine in Upper Egypt several lesser deities, mostly personified 
cult objects, accompany the Hebrew god. 

91 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

religion with which the Hebrews were early connected — 
the same region brought forth monotheistic Islam. Prob- 
ably the peculiar migratory history of the Hebrews who 
found a wandering God in the desert, who travels with 
them, involving a detachment on his part from a local 
habitat, may have chained their affection to him, like the 
love of two friends wandering in a foreign land, like 
the love of bridegroom and bride, as Hosea idyllically 
pictures it. And this detachment of their God from mere 
place gave them a larger view of Deity than is the lot 
of the ordinary tribe whose god is locally confined and 
which picks up new gods wherever it travels. It is inter- 
esting to notice that even in Palestine he remained a 
peculiarly supersensuous God. His ark was not neces- 
sary to his religion, it suffered ignominious capture, and 
his early sanctuary Shilo was destroyed (I Sam. 4; Jer. 
7). It was long before he found a home at Jerusalem; 
even then the home was not necessary to him. He could 
endure the burning of his house, the destruction of his 
sacred ark, and Ezekiel sees his glory moving majestically 
away from his abandoned temple. If, after the Exile, 
there is more than ever before an insistence on locating 
his presence in the holy city, nevertheless the higher reach 
of faith had been made; his holy temple is in the heav- 
ens (Hab. 2:20). The Hebrew did not proceed in his 
thought from what God must be in his relation to the 
world, but rather finding him everywhere, and always 
ready to serve his people and to rise above their enemies, 
he found him through experience a cosmic God. But 
their deepest interest lay always in their experience, what 
they had found in him for themselves, only secondarily, 
and so far as this served them, in his relation to the world. 
They learned of him as World-God only when they be- 
came world-citizens; but their faith was ready for the 
ordeal. This very particularism of the Hebrew religion, 
this particularism of Yahwe, seemingly the very pole to a 

92 



THE HEBREW RELIGION 

starting point of a cosmic and monistic theology, was the 
secret and safeguard of what Israel ultimately effected 
in the world's monotheism. In the study of the history 
of religion we have to begin not with preconceptions as 
to what God is, but to follow the method in which he 
revealed himself, that is, the way in which men or a race 
came to believe in him. Monotheism grew up in Israel, 
but almost in the opposite way to that which our philos- 
ophy would expect. 

We are compelled to the position that from the first 
of Israel's known religious history there was working an 
inner logic which binds together its beginning and climax. 
There is an intellectual foundation to that religion the 
ignoring of which has led to the assumption of all kinds 
of chances to explain the product, which really came of 
inner necessity. It was Wellhausen who made the classic 
remark that the Mosaic religion was summed up in this 
word : " Yahwe Israel's God, Israel Yahwe's people." 
This axiom developed its logic. The worship of one 
Deity.alone, or the conscience of his jealousy, led to the 
denial of competitive or antagonistic deities. For if other 
gods there were, as gods they implicitly deserved service 
in their lands and empires. If those gods were not to 
be worshiped, it was a confession by implication that they 
did not exist. It was a similar and withal uniquely dras- 
tic application of logic which shut up all the shrines of 
the land under King Josiah to teach the one national God 
through the single sanctuary at Jerusalem. And it was 
by a similar logic that Judaism proceeded to the sense of 
its missionary duty to the world, as set forth in the 
Evangelist of the Second Isaiah and the parable of 
Jonah. If there was only the one God and Israel alone 
knew him, it was Israel's commission, if there were any 
pride and humanity, to make him known to the world. 
The religion of Israel was led on by the same unconscious 
logic that has driven every monistic religion into claiming 

93 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

and preaching a Gospel for the world. The same single- 
ness of mind which marks the home religion forces it into 
the exclusiveness, intolerance, bigotry, if you will, which 
is the antinomy in every religion which will be catholic. 

II. Yahwe's Relation to the World 
.Yah we appears as the sole creator of the world, from 
the two stories of Creation in Gen. 1-2 and through the 
Old Testament. No "partner" is associated with him 
in his creative acts, except in the passage, '^ Let us make 
man in our image," a reminiscence of earlier polytheism, 
but a phrase which remained acceptable to the late hand 
which finally redacted that chapter. The Hebrew verb 
we translate " create " is used exclusively of the divine 
action, but our theological content of creatio ex nihilo is 
not to be read into it; the raw matter of the universe 
exists from the beginning; on its origin Hebrew thought 
did not speculate. Yahwe is the artist of the Kosmos, 
actually a Protoplast with his own hands in the Yahwistic 
Creation Story. The mythical aboriginal monsters of 
Chaos survive in the poetry of the books of Isaiah and 
Job, again almost entirely as literary reminiscences and 
often given an historical interpretation. The Tiamat of 
the Babylonian legend appears in Gen. i as Tehom, '' the 
deep," but without personification; it ^s the Chaos. 
Yahwe's lordship over the universe is expressed in vari- 
ous epithets : he is " the Possessor of heaven and earth " 
(Gen. 14: 19) ; Yahwe Sebaoth, understood at least sub- 
sequently as the God of the heavenly hosts; the King 
of the world, as in the application to him of the title of 
the Persian monarch, ''the Great King" (Ps. 48:2); 
"the Judge of all the earth" (Gen. 18:25). Some of 
his titles are of most antique origin, as the Highest 
(Elyon, Gen. 14:19), and in themselves predicated 
nothing as to his absoluteness; their content must be ob- 
tained from the sum of the theology. 

94 



THE HEBREW RELIGION 

There exists accordingly in the Old Testament a re- 
markable singleness of mind and religious equanimity; 
there is no distraction as among a number of possible or 
rival powers or objects of obligation. It is noticeable 
that that sphere wherein magic is the opm operandum and 
the cult of the dead from early fell under the ban of the 
official religion ( e.g., I Sam. 28:3); both elements con- 
tinued and had their renascence in the Judaistic period, 
but the spirit of Yahwism forbade their entrance into the 
public religion. This monism affected as well the moral 
sphere of the conflict of good and evil. What was else- 
where attributed to demons and ghosts or to fates higher 
than the gods was logically assigned to the one divine 
power. The physical evil of the world was assigned to 
him, always in explanation of it man's sin being given; 
not only so, but, where it suits his purpose to punish men, 
he is the ultimate ground of their sin, as when he hardens 
Pharaoh's heart (Ex. 4:21) or sends his Lying Spirit 
into the mouth of his prophets (I Ki. 22). But as physical 
evil was always held to be the exact correspondent and 
equivalent of moral fault, this doctrine had its fateful 
result. In the earlier age when Israel was on the whole 
prosperous and the accent lay upon the community and 
not at all on the individual, the easy calculus of good 
and evil was borne without too great difficulty. After 
all, it still exists in all popular religion, while its logic 
is hard to avoid in any theology of a one God. But the 
crash of the ancient system of moral philosophy came 
with the age which saw the fall of the monarchy and its 
dispersal of the scattered individuals from whom as spir- 
itual units was constructed the Jewish Church; it was 
the age, too, of that prophet of individualism, Jeremiah. 
The crisis is marked in the experiences of this prophet 
and in the spiritual drama of Job. The hero defies his 
friends' contention that his evil lot is the result of his sin 
and denies that they speak for God. He finds no answer 

95 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

for his problem except in resignation to the God of un- 
speakable ways. Theologically the drama ends in skep- 
ticism, but mystically Job has learnt that his Champion 
lives. 

However, this stubborn higher faith in the one God 
who must be withal righteous, so that a man appeals to 
him as against him, was not practicable in the mass of 
the religious folk, even in the official religion. It is a 
dramatic coincidence that in this tremendous trial of the 
simple Hebrew faith Persia with its dualistic religion 
became mistress of the Jewish people. Without doubt 
that new, sternly moral religion had its effect upon Juda- 
ism, although not, I believe, to the extent that many 
scholars suppose. Rather, Zoroastrianism was itself a 
symptom of the breakdown of the older simple-minded 
faiths. ' Judaism equally but not to the same extreme met 
the problem with a projection of dualism. The survivals 
of ancient polytheism were revamped for the explanation 
of the evil and sin of the world. Satan, one of Yahwe's 
chief ministers, became his antagonist ; the celestial hosts 
are divided into good and bad angels, there is war in 
heaven. The ancient myth of the marriage of the Sons 
of God with the daughters of men — ^in its framework in 
Genesis set forth as a crowning act of audacity, and then 
forgotten — is rediscovered to give a celestial explanation, 
of sin, a factor brought in from an outside sphere into 
God's good world. The ancient Serpent of Chaos had 
become a rationalistic snake in the Garden of Eden, but 
he now again flashes out in his true colors as the old 
Dragon. The drama of good and evil is carried into the 
heavens. There we must leave it where Christianity 
accepts it, proclaiming a Saviour from the Prince of the 
power of the air and the forces of darkness. In the rich- 
ness of its experience the Hebrew religion met, even if 
it did not escape unscathed, the fiercest of doubts con- 

96 



THE HEBREW RELIGION 

cerning a one good God, but after all left its monotheism 
a heritage for the world. 

But we err much if we think that the doctrine of the 
Creator God was the chief element in the Hebrew theology 
concerning the world. This was made a cardinal tenet 
in the early Jewish proselytism and in the preaching of 
the Christian Gospel, where the doctrine almost precedes 
that of the Saviour. Cosmic speculation must connect 
the origins of things with the responsible deities of the 
universe, the one God must be the creator at least of the 
Kosmos in its original plan. But the cardinal, the unique 
characteristic of the Hebrew doctrine of Yahwe's relation 
to the world consists in making him not so much the God 
of its beginnings as the God of its history. Here we lay 
the finger upon what I am inclined to think is the most 
original thing in the Hebrew religion. 

Where other sacred volumes are theologies, meta- 
physics, revelations, the Old Testament is primarily a 
history. And the creed of Israel is a historical confes- 
sion. One thinks first of the prayers and liturgies of 
the Jewish Church, in which the sacred history of the 
race is recited as the basis of present faith and future 
"hope — a precedent carried on into the Christian liturgy 
of the Eucharist. We can carry these confessional retro- 
spects in their almost stereotyped form back to the Psalms 
and the prayers in Ezra and Nehemiah. But the same 
historical faith is equally strong in the Second Isaiah and 
Deuteronomy and it colors all the Prophets, in their re- 
bukes as well as in their promises. It is most striking in 
the earliest of the canonical Prophets, Amos and Hosea : 
both books are full of reminiscences of the sacred story 
and of God's working through history, for it is an abso- 
lutely false view of the Prophets which would make them 
abstract theologians and moralists, without a country 
and without a tradition. But more striking than this 
prophetic literature are those great historical cycles, now 
7 97 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

incorporated in the canon, from Genesis into Samuel, with 
their legitimate descendants stretching down intO' Kings. 
These books we scholars prosaically call Yahwist and 
Elohist, or, curtly, with abstract symbols J and E. 
Scholarship has hardly reread the Scriptures enough to 
appreciate them. But these writings which go back to the 
age before the monarchy in their origin, and which often 
are the finer the earlier they are, as is true of all classics, 
are pervaded by the theme of the stately march of Yah we 
through human history. He is a living God, pulsating 
along with man in human events. And the earliest monu- 
ments we have of Hebrew literature tell the same story; 
the Song of Deborah bids sing of the " righteous acts of 
Yah we," that is, of his victories, since the day he came 
out of the desert, and the Song of Moses recites how 
*' the horse and the rider he threw into the sea." There 
is a golden thread binding the earliest literature with the 
latest, the most stereotyped and conventional forms of 
ecclesiastical vogue. 

In studying the Hebrew religion we have, I believe, to 
understand the spirit of its sacred volume as a whole. 
It is absurd to hold that the composition of that volume 
as late is representative only of the latest period, what we 
call Judaism. It is a compilation of earhest and latest 
sources, in that sense the volume is not one, but a varie- 
gated library. But it is one in its presentation of one 
great consistent theme, that of the historical providence 
of Grod, of a God with a purpose for his people and finally 
also for the world. 

Equally the writer of the second story of creation, 
whom we summarily call J, and the writer of the first, 
symbolized with P, writing perhaps centuries apart, set 
their stage for a world drama. In the one we have man 
as the lord of God's creation, given his dominion over 
the world ; in the other the first man and the first woman 
set in the paradise made for them, with all things good, 

98 



THE HEBREW RELIGION 

and only the possibility of evil present in the fateful tree. 
In the two stories together we have man as the child- 
like yet godlike intelligence, the relations of man and 
woman, the beginnings of society, virtue and the possi- 
bility of sin. The reader feels that God himself was 
interested in that first chapter of the human race, even 
as he himself is. He reads on into the second act and sin 
comes into the world. But God still continues his plan 
despite the sinful race. With its degeneration he destroys 
it by the flood, but continues his purpose by saving one 
righteous man. Even the dry Table of the Nations (Gen. 
lo) has its place in the drama because it reveals the God 
of all human historj^ who, as Amos says, " led up the 
Philistines from Caphtor (or Crete) and the Syrians from 
Kir as he led up Israel from Egypt" (Amos 9:7). 
Israel never denied but claimed its partnership in the 
world's history. The story narrows in its scope with the 
selection of Abraham as the hero, but it is no mere pro- 
vincial history that we follow as it stretches on. " The 
Friend of God" issues into a family, and this into a 
nation, which we pursue in its vicissitudes and migrations, 
its triumphs and failures. The gods of the Gentiles love 
success, they cling to their chosen people when these are 
triumphant, they fail them when these succumb ; or rather 
they live and die with the fortunes of their people. This 
was not the case with Israel and its God. As he had no 
birthplace, so he has no tomb. He possesses a divine 
claim upon them, what is called the Covenant, which 
involves a mutual responsibility between them: he will 
not let them go, pursues them with the fierceness of his 
love ; they cannot lose him or they themselves are lost. 

The political history enters into a church history. The 
nation dies and the people are raised to life again, for 
Yahwe Sebaoth's purpose in history will not be frustrated, 
whether it is to save his honor, as the Calvinistic Ezekiel 
claimed, or because he has a world purpose for his servant 

99 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

Jacob, as the Second Isaiah preached. The nation be- 
comes a church, with a history on its political side sordid 
enough, as church history is wont to be. But the feeble 
folk takes its place in the world as a spiritual com- 
munity, living in this world and not of this world, and 
yet worldly enough, we may thank God, to fight for its 
life against Greek Kultur, in its one gross exhibition, as 
it once fought the Philistines. The volume comes to an 
end, but its latest book is one of visions for the future, 
and the divine purpose is not concluded. In the full view 
of history it gives birth to a daughter which becomes the 
nursing mother of our western world, and both the vener- 
able mother and the more vigorous child each cherishes 
that sacred history as prophetic of its future. In the 
hearts of both is written deep the belief in a God of his- 
tory who fulfils himself in many ways and who still 
guides toward a more glorious future only to be accom- 
plished in the heavens. This other-worldly thought comes 
in with the Apocalyptists of Judaism and the early Chris- 
tian Church ; their imagination, fed on the history of the 
past, would break through the veil of eternity and carry 
on God's purposes to infinity. The history of religion 
dare not ignore such a tremendous historical and cosmical 
consciousness as has been developed in those long cen- 
turies, still so potent and imperative on men. It is the 
idea of the Kingdom of God. 

I am not discussing the historic truth of this historical 
consciousness. My point is that Israel regarded itself 
from early days as a people with a future and a destiny, 
and ultimately with a mission in the world. This idea 
appears in the antique odes called the Blessings of Jacob 
and Moses, and in the cycle of the Balaam poems (Gen. 
49 ; Deut. 33 ; Num. 2iff ). It is by no means adequately 
explained from Israel's political or intellectual genius. 
Neither Egypt nor Babylon produced such a conscious- 
ness ; the likest to it is that of Greece or Rome, but the 

100 



THE HEBREW RELIGION 

greatness of those peoples is the explanation of their 
claims. Israel's consciousness is due to its religion, to an 
original idea concerning its God's purpose which it never 
let go and which it always amplified in historic connection 
with the past. In this consciousness Israel has given the 
world one of the greatest contributions to common re- 
hgion ; it may be called Theism, in opposition to the arid 
Deism into which most philosophies and the refinements 
of the higher religions empty. Better, it is the doctrine 
of the God in history, or, as the Hebrew simply put it, 
of '* the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." 

III. Man in His Relation to God 
Man was created as the climax of creation, absolutely 
distinguished from the beasts, and possessing the breath 
or spirit of Yahwe. Except for the subtle serpent of the 
Yahwistic creation story and Balaam's speaking ass, 
there is an absolute gulf between man and the lower 
orders of creation. The whole human race is derived 
from one original pair, and the relationship of the Chosen 
People to all humanity is stressed in the early part of 
Genesis. Israel is not different in origin or character 
from the rest of the world, but is elected of the divine 
will. In the oldest legend man was created for the fel- 
lowship of God. God walked and conversed with him in 
Paradise, was hospitably entertained by Abraham, and 
the subsequent history of divine communication and reve- 
lation sets forth the divine fellowship of Deity with his 
human creatures. The relation between the two is a 
moral o-ne, the merely ritual element is in the origins 
suppressed. The maintenance of the relationship was 
dependent upon man's disobedience; human sin sprang 
from disobedience. 

The Old Testament religion is often represented as 
an aspect of oriental servility, the human creature cring- 
ing before the divine king and despot. This view is based 

lOI 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

upon an ignorance of early Semitism and its social life. 
The Arab is not a serf or a slave; the actual Arabian of 
historical knowledge is an essentially independent and 
skeptical being. To him, as to the Hebrew, kingship was 
a later and secondary institution: the elder society was 
based on the fiction of a great family, the leader of 
which was the eldest and best. Even when the monarchy 
developed in Israel, it remained what we may call a lim- 
ited and, according to Deuteronomy, a constitutional 
monarchy ; its claims were not easily brooked, as the atti- 
tude of the prophets shows. Messianism itself grew up 
not so much as a result of the monarchy as in opposition 
to it. Again, there is the parallel in early Islam, where 
we find the Caliphs reigning not by inherent right but 
through the assent of the people. The pattern of a divine 
despot was not given by Israel's early constitutions; 
rather this idea came in with the later experiences under 
the world empires. Then Yahwe becomes the king. The 
reverence before Deity is to be referred to natural awe, 
need not have been patterned after earthly institutions. 

Hence the Hebrew God is not originally a king. As 
the ancient names show, equally for the Hebrews, the old 
Arabians and the Amorites who established the first dy- 
nasty of Babylon, he was represented under terms of the 
tribal life. In Abraham's name he is the " lofty father," 
in Hammurapi's he is the " Uncle," i.e., " Patron," or 
the " Brother," as in Ahimelek. He is given the title 
Adon, " Lord," or Adonay, " my Lord," which expressed 
conventionally something like the English " Sir," or 
*' Milord," and this becomes one of his standing epithets, 
but the name Ba'al, which was indigenous to Canaan, 
meaning the owner of the district, with the inference that 
its citizens were serfs or chattels, was never easily accli- 
matized, and the Prophets reacted against the epithet on 
good constitutional tradition. 

Probably we dare not press too much the terms of 

102 



THE HEBREW RELIGION 

almost easy familiarity on which the Patriarchs con- 
versed with Yahwe. That is more or less common to all 
ancient mythology and folk-legend. Still they are to be 
noticed as presenting the personal relation subsisting be- 
tween Yahwe and his human friends even in the austere 
official history of Israel. When Abraham pleads so 
humanly for the lives of the people in Sodom and Gomor- 
rah — '' Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? " — 
he is taking the democratic liberty of counselling the chief 
who admits him to his intimacy. 

But we have to observe this significant fact that the 
media of communication between Yahwe and his people 
were not confined to an aristocracy or hierarchy. The 
Hebrew tradition in regard to cults and sacred castes is 
ancient and genuine. The temples were not the first 
things built, as in the Babylonian legend, nor was man 
created in order to provide sacrifices for the gods, as in 
Greek thought. It is a strange thing that a religion 
which appears to culminate in the elaborate ritual of 
Judaism actually held that this was not the original status ; 
it introduced the whole elaborate cult at a given moment 
of history. And when we recall the long line of individual 
organs of revelation in that sacred history, and also the 
democratic phases of spiritual life which have manifested 
themselves through subsequent Judaism and Christianity, 
we are forced to admit that there were ancient elements 
of great spiritual liberty in that religion which, however 
obscured at times, nevertheless persisted for the world's 
use. We are accustomed to think of early Semitic re- 
ligion as entirely composed of ritual, taboo, magic, with a 
consequent elaborate system of sacred ofificiants. The 
Hebrew historical tradition does not bear this out. The 
Patriarchs are not priests, and Amos and Jeremiah deny 
that sacrifices were offered in the Mosaic age (Amos 
5:25; Jer. 7:2ifiP). I fear the history of religion will 
deny the statements of the Prophets, but the important 

103 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

fact is that there existed wide-spread such an unsacerdotal, 
anti-caste idea among the Hebrews at an early age. 

Recognizing this element which is not discoverable 
from archaeology and which appears to be denied by the 
later ritual development in Judaism, we may be able to 
understand a phenomenon in Hebrew religion which gen- 
erally challenges explanation. I refer to the institution 
of Prophecy, the most distinctive order in Hebrew life, 
and without a compeer in the world's religion. The 
present tendency of religious criticism is to postulate a 
spiritual marvel in the Prophets of the 8th century, which 
almost approximates the admiration for Jesus Christ. 
It is presented as having no roots in the past, to have 
been confined to a small circle of men, and yet to have 
had such an effect upon the subsequent religion that it 
tremendously modified it and left an enduring pure im- 
pression which lasted through the ages with its fruition 
in Christianity. But I wonder whether, if we are to 
attempt a scientific treatment of the subject, it is not wiser 
to allow some early original element in the crucible of the 
Hebrew religion which made the soil from which the 
Prophets grew. Is the Hebrew history all in the wrong 
when it points to a series of men who, apart from cult 
and caste, talked with God, received his inspirations and 
revelations? Again, it is not the question whether these 
stories are to be taken at their face value, whether Abra- 
ham entertained God in his tent or Moses saw his face. 
But the presence of this tradition, not merely in the 
'Prophets themselves, for they have almost nothing to 
say about the earlier heroes, but in popular story-books, 
points to another capacity of religion than that which we 
sum up in a devotion to cults and taboos. Abraham, 
Joseph, Moses, Samuel, Nathan, Elijah, were not the 
figments of later writers, if the taste of their hearers was 
entirely dififerent. We should then hear more of rol- 
licking heroes like Samson, or for religious tastes more 

104 



THE HEBREW RELIGION 

of the tales of temples and priests. But their subject 
matter must somewhat gauge for us their audience and 
its tastes. Evidently there was a stream of religion 
stretching behind the Prophets in which lay in embryo 
some of the higher spiritual goods of mankind. This 
position does not deny the existence in predominance of 
every other strain of religion, to the most mechanical and 
unspiritual, to taboo and fetich systems, these often inex- 
tricably entwined with the highest elements. But as none 
can deny that in the atmosphere of Jewish cult and legal- 
ism have grown up some of the great saints of the world, 
or that Jesus of Nazareth cannot be historically explained 
except from that Judaism, so we must allow higher strains 
in the earlier religion of which we should have no echo 
but for the Prophets and the Biblical story-books. We 
are too much possessed with the evolutionistic theory so- 
called and think that the order is always first the lower, 
then the higher ; modern science denies this in the physical 
world, and equally the study of ancient civilizations 
denies it. 

I suggest, therefore, that while we regard Prophecy 
as creative in the absolute sense and diminish not a whit 
from its honor, nevertheless we look at it also as sympto- 
matic of the Hebrew religion. Moses and the great 
Prophets and certain Psalmists and Jesus are certainly 
not so many isolated individuals : that were an unscientific 
attitude. Rather, if we may use scientific categories of 
spiritualities, they are to be explained together. 

For these men who make the Bible religion what it 
is represent the essential character of that religion, its 
note of the personal God who comes into communication 
with his creatures made for godlikeness. The note is the 
same whether Abraham is the Friend of God, or Moses 
his Steward, whether Elijah hears his voice at Horeb, or 
Isaiah sees his glory in the earthly temple, or Jesus calls 
him Father. It is the personal God, often acting un- 

105 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

accountably as personalities do, who selects those whom 
he will for his intimacy and disregards the conventions 
of men and ecclesiastical castes. As he selected his own 
chosen people, so ever and again he elects chosen indi- 
viduals and admits them to his counsel. And as that 
chosen people was to be his servant to the world, so he 
elects this '' goodly fellowship of the Prophets '' to preach 
his law and gospel to the world, for it is only through 
human personality that the divine Person can be made 
known. The Prophets sublimate the religion of Israel, 
but they are also its necessary corollaries. 

I pass on to that phase of man's Godward side which 
may be summed up in the word " cult," the ritual, formal 
service of Deity. In most religions, higher as well as 
lower, the cult plays quantitatively the greatest part, in 
its practice, and for the great masses of humanity cult 
is religion. A quantitative predominance holds as truly 
for the Hebrew religion. The Old Testament is actually 
the greatest manual of archaic religion which science 
possesses. Outside of the scanty monuments and chance 
references of classical and Arabic writers we actually 
know very little of the early Semitic ritual, for the Baby- 
Ionian is not to be taken into account as presenting pure 
Semitism, it Is too greatly charged with the Sumerian 
element, and Is too highly elaborated; at the best this 
parallel is good only for studying the latest phases of 
Jewish cult when there was possibility of extensive Baby- 
lonian Influence. The Hebrew cult Is a phase of the old 
Semitic cult, with its origin In North Arabia and its 
further developments In Syria, also a land of genuine 
Semitism. As the cult does not for the most part dis- 
tinguish the Hebrew religion from Its affiliated rites, I 
give it less proportion In this study, which must deal 
with the differentiating characteristics of that religion. 

In one Important respect the phenomenon of the cult 
in the Hebrew religion is remarkable; that cult was not 

io6 



THE HEBREW RELIGION 

static, as in the case of Babylonia, it was ever in flux; 
and further there was in the Hebrew reHgion the con- 
sciousness of this flux and of the epochs of its histor}^ 
We might best compare the Greek consciousness, in the 
form of legend, of the introduction of the Orphic and 
Dionysiac cults. Several clearly marked stages may be 
marked out in our field. 

(i) The primitive period, illustrated by the Patri- 
archal and Mosaic traditions ; here we have many reminis- 
cences of the antique Arabian cult. 

(2) The period of assimilation with the elaborate 
cult-system of Canaan; this system, which also probably 
contained elements that had filtered in from Babylonia, 
the Mediterranean, possibly Egypt, was the principal 
alien factor in the history, although there was too much 
of an identity among the various phases of the Semitic 
cult to allow us to distinguish exactly between Arabian 
and Canaanitish. 

(3) The age of reaction, chiefly represented by the 
Prophets of the 8th century, although earlier prophetic 
men had taken stand against the Canaanite innovations, 
for example the prophets who opposed the building of the 
temple in Jerusalem. 

(4) The compromise betwen the Jerusalem hierarchy 
and the prophetic reformers, appearing in Deuteronomy 
and carried on into the so-called Law of Holiness (Lev. 
17-26) and Ezekiel. The elements of Canaanite re- 
ligion regarded as antagonistic to the worship of Yahwe 
were done away with in the drastic reform of Josiah; 
the cult was absolutely centralized at the temple at Jeru- 
salem. But this centralization only intensified the ritual- 
istic elements of the religion, and these triumphed with 
the acceptance by the prophetic element of the purification 
of patently objectionable features. As in the case of 
the reforming Akenaten of Egypt, the reform broke down 
with the death of King Josiah, but, unlike the Egyptian 

107 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

precedent, a composition of contrary forces had been 
formed which set the order for the future. For it was 
the element that accepted this reformed order which per- 
sisted through the cataclysm of the Exile. Ezekiel, a 
prophet but still more a priest, and withal an apocalyptist, 
laid down a typical ritual scheme for the security of holi- 
ness in the future. 

(5) The ecclesiastical establishment of the Post-exilic 
Age. This conserved the chief theological results of the 
Prophets, provided them with a shell the world could 
not break, but made Judaism a typically ritualistic insti- 
tution. It continued the unobjectionable elements of the 
elder cult, restored ancient forms of practice, added new 
elements to perfect the scheme, probably introduced 
Babylonian elements, and in general theorized at will. 
And the flux-like character of the Law was continued by 
those High-Church Progressives, the Pharisees. But the 
same age which saw the intensification of the ritual of 
the community to an abnormal degree witnessed the rise 
of its antinomy, the Synagogue, the cultless meeting- 
house of the Jews. It was the centralization of the cult 
in Jerusalem which in part produced this pole to itself; 
but the phenomenon also grew out of older spiritual ele- 
ments of the religion which the later crystallization could 
not harden or control. Prayer and praise, in forms which 
have become classical, took the place of the sacrificial 
cult for the greater part of life; the Sabbath with its 
rest and worship stood for the elaborate calendar of sacri- 
fice ; the teacher, wise man and rabbi became the spiritual 
leaders of Judaism, and ultimately laid down the law to 
the hierarchy. These spiritual elements kept their place 
in or made their way into the cult itself. The Psalter 
of the Christian Church was the hymnal of the temple, 
many of its songs being the actual accompaniments of the 
temple ritual ; the theologians met in the temple, and there 
Jesus could preach, for it was his " Father's House." 

108 



THE HEBREW RELIGION 

After all, the spiritual religion of the Jew found nothing 
incongruous to itself in that temple ritual which we mod- 
erns so superciliously treat. It was reserved for the late 
Epistle to the Hebrews for the Christian Church to learn 
that it could dispense with that stay of the paternal 
religion. 

The Hebrew cult is of tremendous interest to the 
archaeologist; it is of equal value to the student of re- 
ligious thought and life. For in this religion which 
issued so loftily, whether we consider later Judaism or 
Christianity, we can mark stage by stage the growth of 
a wonderful germ, in part struggling with, in part sub- 
mitting to, outward forms which descended to the utmost 
superstition, transforming them and yet compromising 
with them where essentials were not concerned. It was 
the cult which conserved that religion for us. And in 
preserving its cult that religion consciously recognized 
that its truth was not a pure philosophy or an abstract 
ethic but a religious life for a people as a whole, to be 
incorporated in forms and symbols of the world. 

I pass finally to that phase of the Hebrew religion 
which regards man's relation to his God in the prospect 
of the end of things, what is called eschatology. In our 
field this falls into two categories : the thought concerning 
" the latter days," to use the Biblical term, as they con- 
cerned the community as a whole; and the expectations 
concerning the final fate of the individual. 

It is the former idea which bulks in the Old Testa- 
ment. From the beginning throughout it is a volume of 
expectations; we mark this in the ancient Blessings at- 
tributed to Jacob and Moses, the antique cycle put In 
Balaam's mouth, as well as in the later Apocalyptists. 
The historical sense in that religion concerned itself 
equally with the future as with the past, for if the past 
had a meaning, so the future was In a sense intelligible, 
was logically discoverable ; this is an element in the pre- 

105 



• RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

dictive phase of Prophetism. And this expectation was 
first of all and always primarily national; for Yahwe 
was the God of Israel and Israel's life was bound up 
in his eternity. The expectation of the future assumes 
every variety of form and has been an inexhaustible 
treasure-house for all religion since. Ancient dreams 
of a Golden Age survived; to these the monarchy and 
national pride gave the touch of personal loyalty and 
enthusiasm in the figure of the Messiah of the house of 
David ; the thought was uncertain as between a Messianic 
line or a single, almost mystical person. The prosaic 
age after the Exile was content with the prospect of a 
sacred asylum land, protected by Deity in its absolute 
holiness. Transcendental features were introduced, as 
in the idea that there was to be a supernatural elevation 
of the land, that it might become a veritable Mountain 
of God (Is. 2 : iff, etc.). By the hierarchy and the Has- 
monsean house the Messianic idea was suppressed as 
far as possible, to live in the under-currents of popular 
and religious thought. And when the world's pressure 
became too hard, and a new order was imperatively 
demanded, the Apocalyptists revealed a new heaven and 
a new earth, with a strange mingling of transcendental 
and earthly elements. Daniel sees the Son of Man 
brought before the Ancient of Days in the heavens ; the 
seer meant Israel, but religion turned the figure into that 
of a supernatural Messiah. 

•In view of this elaborate development of thought 
which was ready with a new vision for every emergency 
of the national life, it is most strange to mark the utter 
absence until a late day of any form of an adequate idea 
of personal immortality — a concept which marks all 
higher religion and which had its remarkable flowering 
in the neighboring religion of Egypt. There was only 
the ancient animistic view of belief in the survival of 
the dead as shades in dreary Sheol, without real life or 

no 



THE HEBREW RELIGION 

merited retribution^ The Sadducees and Samaritans 
continued this comfortless creed into the Christian era. 
The absence of beHef in a real immortality may be ex- 
plained negatively by the persistence with which orthodoxy 
set itself against all mortuary cults, which with all their 
comfort and transport involved superstitions intolerable 
to the rehgion of the Living God {e.g., Is. 8: 19). And 
the Jew showed his fealty to his religion by sticking to 
that faith though it brought him no hope that he should 
live forever. Only in late books and most rarely is 
there any certain reference to immortality, as in Daniel's 
assertion of '* the resurrection of some to everlasting life 
and of some to everlasting contempt " (Dan. 12 : 2). 

The Jew did not learn the individual hope through 
magical rites, as did the Egyptian, nor through mystery 
rites like the Greek, but in a way peculiar to the character 
of his religion, the keynote of which was personal ex- 
perience. It was the immediate personal, and we may 
say mystical, experience of him who is called " my God," 
and '' the God of my life " (Ps. 42), that gave the pious 
Israelite the sense not so much of immortality as of eternal 
relationship with his God. The bond with the Living 
God was the guarantee of an unbroken fellowship. A 
few utterances breathe this mystical logic of revelation. 
Job's spirit faints when he rises to the unreachable thought 
that " apart from my flesh I shall see God " (Job. 19 : 25- 
27) . A Psalmist sings : " Thou wilt not leave my soul to 
Sheol . . . Thou wilt show me the path of life. In 
thy right hand are pleasures for evermore" (Ps. 16: 
lof ). And another Psalmist : " As for me, I shall behold 
thy face in righteousness, I shall be satisfied, when I 
wake, with thy Hkeness " (17:15). And yet another: 
" Thou shalt guide with me with thy counsel, and after- 
ward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but 
thee and there is none upon earth that I desire beside 
thee " (73 : 24f ). He is a soul which declares it had en- 

III 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT ^ 

tered into the " mysteries " of God (v. 17). And for an- 
other saint God will be found of him even in hell : ''If I 
make my bed in Sheol, behold, thou art there " (139: 8). 
It is with these spiritual apperceptions of eternal life, and 
not with the mere animistic semi-physical notions of con- 
tinued animation, that the intensity of the Jewish and 
Christian belief in a fulness of life hereafter with God 
and his saints is related. It is eternal life, not immor- 
tality, a continuity of the relationship with God which 
the quantity of time cannot dissolve. 

Such is this strange religion. It abounds in inner 
antinomies, it runs against the usual processes of religious 
thought. It defies philosophy. It is the riddle of the 
student of religion. He may whittle it down to its lowest 
terms, finding in it the most primitive forms of religion 
common to every folk. But it will not be explained in 
that way. If it has its feet on the earth, it holds its 
head in the heavens. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Texts: 

To the several Revised Versions o£ the Old Testament is now to be 
added the new Jewish Version of the Hebrew Scriptures just 
published by the Jewish Publication Society in Philadelphia. 

For the Apocrypha of the English Bible the translation in the Eng- 
lish Revision should be used: it may be obtained separately. 
R. H, Charles with the collaboration of other British scholars 
has published the various Jewish Apocrypha which have enjoyed 
sacred authority in the Christian Church and the other parallel 
Judaistic literature known as the Pseudepigrapha, in English 
translation and with commentary, in two sumptuous volumes 
under the title, The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old 
Testament, Cambridge, 1913. A similar work, although not as 
extensive, is Kautzsch : Die Apokryphen u. Pseiidepigraphen 
des Alien Testaments, Tubingen, 1900. 

WosKS ON Old Testament Religion : 

A. KuENEN : The Religion of Israel, 3 vols., London, 1874. 

J. Wellhausen : art. " Israel " in Enc. Britannica, 9th ed. (primarily 
a history, but classical for its sketch of the religion). 

C. F. Burney: Outlines of Old Testament Theology (Oxford 
Church Text Books), New York, 1902. 

E. Kautzsch : art. " Religion of Israel," in Extra Volume of Hast- 
ings' Dictionary of the Bible, pp. 612-734. 

112 



THE HEBREW RELIGION 

B. Stade and A. Bertholet: Biblische Theologie des Alien Testa- 
ments, 2 vols., Tiibingen, 1904, 191 1 (including the Judaistic 
period). 

Henry Preserved Smith : The Religion of Israel, New York, 1914. 

John P. Peters : The Religion of the Hebrews, Boston, 1914. 

Special Studies : 

M. Jastrow, Jr.: Hebrew and Babylonian Traditions, New York, 

1914. 
K. Bitdde: The Religion of Israel to the Exile, New York, 1899. 
T. K. Cheyne: Jewish Religious Life after the Exile, New York, 

1898. 

The Judaistic Period: 

W. Bousset: Die Religion des Judentums im neutestamentlichen 
Zeitalter, 2d ed., Berlin, 1906. 

H. J. Wicks : The Doctrine of God in the Jewish Apocryphal and 
Apocalyptic Literature, London, 191 5. 

R. H. Charles: A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future 
Life in Israel, in Judaism, and in Christianity, 2d ed., Edin- 
burgh, I gu- 



ns 



CHAPTER V 

THE RELIGION OF THE VEDA 
BY FRANKLIN EDGERTON 

The Veda is the collective name given to the most 
ancient literature of India. It is at the same time the 
sacred literature of the orthodox Hindus. For many 
centuries the Brahmans, and those Hindus of lower caste 
who believed with them, have regarded the Veda as holy, 
inspired revelation; not the work of any man, nor cre- 
ated in time and space, but divinely revealed in fabulously 
ancient times to holy and semi-divine seers, called rishis, 
through whom it was made known to mankind. 

When we speak of the religion of the Veda, how- 
ever, we do not mean the religion of the later Hindus who 
'made the Veda their Bible. That religion is dalled 
Brahmanism. We mean instead the contemporary re- 
ligion which we find displayed in the Veda itself, the 
religion of the composers of the Veda; which is a very 
different thing. 

W^e speak of the Veda as a unit, and compare it to 
the Bible. But if even the Bible is unified only by the 
pious faith of the believer this is much more emphatically 
true of the Veda. The Veda is a great literature rather 
than a book; a literature of vast and indefinite extent. 
And there is no recognized canon of authenticity in the 
case of the Veda. The comporition of the works included 
in the Veda extended over many centuries ; and in the later 
periods the question what is Vedic and what is not be- 
comes increasingly difficult. Fortunately, it is also 
increasingly unimportant. 

There are certain recognized types of literature into 
which all Vedic works are divided. In order to be Vedic, 
any work must at least claim to belong to one of these 

114 



THE RELIGION OF THE VEDA 

types. They are: i. The Samhitas or " Collections "^ of 
mantras or '' sacred utterances." These are the oldest 
and most basic parts of the Veda. There are primarily 
four of these Samhitas; but each of the four exists, or 
else originally did exist, in several more or less different 
recensions, cultivated in different priestly schools. The 
four recognized Samhitas, or types of Samhita, are: (a) 
the Rig-veda, consisting mainly of hymns of praise and 
prayer intended to be used at the sacrifices to the various 
gods; (b) the Atharva-veda, consisting mostly of incan- 
tations designed to be used in connection with magic rites 
for the attainment of all manner of natural human de- 
sires, both innocent and sinister; (c) the Yajur-veda, 
consisting of sacrificial formulae and litanies, exclusively 
intended for use at certain important sacrificial cere- 
monies; (d) the Sama-veda, consisting of chants, and also 
purely ritual in application. 2. The second grand divi- 
sion of the Vedic literature consists of what are called 
the Brahmanas. They are theological text-books, like 
the Jewish Talmud, explaining from the priestly standi 
point the texts found in the Samhitas, and the rites with 
which they were connected. 3. The third division con- 
sists of the Aranyakas or *' forest-books," and the Upani- 
shads or " intimate, secret expositions." Both of these 
were originally appendices to the Brahmanas. But the 
Upanlshads soon acquired an independent existence and 
value, owing to the distinctive character and importance 
of their contents. They contain the first extensive specu- 
lations in philosophy known in India. As such they are 
at the same time the culmination of the higher thought 
of the Vedic period, and the foundation on w^hich all 
the philosophic speculation of later India ultimately rests. 
Chronologically there are vast differences in different 
parts of the Veda. We do not know how old the oldest 
parts of the Rig-veda are; we may guess, perhaps, that 
they go back to about 2000 b.c. Vedic composition 

"S 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

stretches from about that time down almost or quite to 
the Christian era, in which the later Upanishads are 
placed. 

There is room in this long period of time for extensive 
variations and developments in religion. And, in fact, the 
religion of the early Vedic works differs enormously from 
that of the later ones. But that is not all. Radically 
different types of religion appear to have existed side by 
side in some periods ; and at times we find signs of curious 
and puzzling blends between them. We ought really to 
speak of the " religions " — instead of " religion " — of 
the Veda. 

At the very outset the student of Indian religions is 
struck by a peculiar feature which may be said to remain 
through all time, in general, characteristic of them all. 
Namely : on the intellectual side they are free, speculative, 
active, receptive, and not dogmatically crystallized. Hence 
on the one hand the bewilderingly Protean forms which 
most Indian religions assume, seeming to defy any con- 
sistent and logical arrangement of their intellectual be- 
liefs ; and on the other hand, the striking tolerance which 
they show to new ideas and even to rival contemporary 
sects. But if Hindu religions are free in thought, they 
are anything but free in action. To be religiously cor- 
rect is to live correctly; it matters little what you think. 
Proper observances and performances seem to be the 
essence of religion in India, rather than an orthodox 
system of belief. The Hindus are intellectually tolerant, 
but they are intolerant and narrow in their insistence 
on formal rites and actions. 

There is a well-known and prominent concept of 
Vedic ethics, about which I wish space permitted me to 
speak at length, but which I must at least mention because 
it so strikingly illustrates this point. Right living, ac- 
cording to the Rig-veda, is living in accordance with the 
rita. The rita means the Way of the Universe ; it is essen- 

ii6 



THE RELIGION OF THE VEDA 

tially the Tao of the Chinese. All the established events 
of the visible world are parts of the rita, or take place in 
accordance with it. And the whole duty of man is to 
govern his life after the pattern of this cosmic law. It 
is a really noble concept, and might have been made the 
basis for a truly inspiring moral system. But in the 
hands of the Vedic poets the rita becomes little more than 
an apotheosis of the system of sacrifice around which 
Rigvedic religion centers. To live in accordance with the 
rita one must perform all the ceremonies of the cult, 
and little more. That is practically the whole duty of 
man. 

This cult, which is the be-all and end-all of the hymns 
which devote themselves to it, presents itself to us in the 
Vedic hymns in anything but a primitive form. It ap- 
pears there as the last precipitate of centuries of compli- 
cated development. 

The primitive, prehistoric ancestors of the Vedic 
Aryans (that is the name by which the authors of the 
hymns call themselves) had a religion which may be called 
a naturalistic polytheism, or animism. Man saw in 
alj nature constant manifestations of volitional acts, which 
he interpreted in terms of his own acts. He inferred 
that whatever went on in the world w^as due to the con- 
scious activity of spirits — sentient beings more or less 
like his fellow-men. All animate and inanimate objects, 
all natural processes, and even abstractions of qualities 
or activities as such, were naively conceived as being, or 
as inhabited by, spirits — that is, sentient beings capable 
of volitional acts. 

The prehistoric Aryan dealt with these powers, which 
he supposed existed in the world about him, in the two 
ways which are familiar in primitive religions the world 
over, namely, by devotional propitiation, and by compul- 
sory magic. My position in this course makes it un- 
necessary ' for me to take time to dwell on these two 

117 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

methods, or to analyze their relationship to each other; 
you already know what they mean; and in Aryan re- 
ligion they bear the aspect of ultimate and irreducible 
data (which is not saying that one may not in fact have 
developed out of the other) . It appears that the primitive 
Aryan undertook to control by magic, and so to make 
subject to his will, those spiritual agencies which he 
thought he could so control; while the more powerful 
spirits — gods, if you like — he sought to propitiate by sac- 
rifices, thus securing their assistance by winning their good 
will, since he felt he had not the power to compel them. 
Since very early prehistoric times these sacrificial rites 
of propitiation were accompanied by spoken words. Their 
purpose, as we still see clearly from the hymns of the 
Rig-veda, was to call the attention of the gods to the 
offering, and invite them to enjoy it. At probably an 
equally early time, the magic rites were also provided 
with spoken charms or incantations, although here the 
motive cannot have been the same, since in many of them, 
at least, no sacrifice was offered and no deity was in- 
voked to aid. But in any case the original meaning of 
the words spoken, even at the sacrifice — their function 
as an invitation to the gods — soon became obscured, or 
was relegated to the background. Before historic times, 
the invocation or " hymn," as we may now call it, had 
come through ancient custom to be regarded as an in- 
tegral and very necessary part of the religious perform- 
ance; an end in itself, just as much as the actual sacrifice 
which it accompanied. One is no more and no less 
important than the other. ^ 

*For example, the hymns of the Rig-veda show clearly that 
they themselves go back to a type of invocations to the gods. 
Nevertheless, the consciousness of this fact was so faint in the 
authors' minds that they felt it necessary to create a special class of 
hymns of invocation (called * apri hymns ')> whose sole* and express 
purpose is to invite the gods to the service ; that is, to the sacrifice 
and the accompanying hymns of praise and prayer, now felt as a 
kind of offerings in themselves. 

ii8 



THE RELIGION OF THE VEDA 

Originally it appears that any person was qualified to 
engage in sacrifices and magic performances, and to recite 
the accompanying hymns or charms. To a certain extent, 
indeed, this was true even in the historic Vedic period. 
Down to its very end there were some simple domestic 
rites of sacrifice which every Aryan might, or even had 
to, perform. And certainly many magic rites could be 
performed by anyone. But all such matters quickly be- 
come traditional, and it is then required that they be 
performed precisely in accord with inherited usage; else 
they may fail of the desired result. Accordingly, ordinary 
people continued to perform for themselves only such 
rites as could conveniently be performed by anyone, by 
reason of their simplicity or regularity. And for the per- 
formance of the more occasional or elaborate ceremonies, 
long before the times of the earliest Vedic literature people 
began more and more to call to their aid religious special^ 
ists, priests or medicine-men, who, of course, came into 
existence as a class in response to this natural demand. 
These priests and magic-masters made it their business 
to advise and assist those who would engage in any re- 
ligious performance. And in the case of the more com- 
plicated ones, the participation of these persons became 
so usual that in the times of the Rig-veda it was gradually 
coming — if it had not already come — to be felt as a neces- 
sity to the proper observance of the rites. Thus, finally, 
the priests became the definite custodians of the impor- 
tant ceremonies of the Aryan cult. 

They strengthened their hold on them, whether con- 
sciously or unconsciously, by means of the ever-increasing 
elaboration with which they, or a certain group of them, 
surrounded the rites they employed. There were, of 
course, priests and priests; just as there were rites and 
rites. The priests of the fire-cult, or of a certain fire- 
cult, seem to have become the recognized aristocracy of 
the priesthood, even in prehistoric times. For It had early 

119 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

become fashionable to pour the articles of food and drink, 
which were the most usual sacrificial offerings, into fire.^ 
The fire that consumed the offerings became thereby spe- 
cially sacred ; and the ritual of the fire offering began to 
be distinguished, by those who practised it, as a particu- 
larly holy and pious performance. It naturally followed 
that the fire-ritual soon became especially elaborate, and 
its priests especially respected. 

There was another very ancient special cult, distin- 
guished not by the method of presenting the offering but 
by the offering itself : the cult of the sacred drink Soma. 
The common ancestors of the Vedic Hindus and the 
Persians had offered this beverage, and had even deified 
the drink itself ; it appears in the Avesta, the sacred book 
of the Zoroastrian Persians, under the name of Haoma. 
This is the same word as the Vedic Soma, which likewise 
is both beverage and god. It was a highly prized intoxi- 
cating liquor obtained by a pressing process from the 
shoots of a plant which cannot now be identified. Among 
Iranians and Hindus alike it was regarded as the most 
acceptable means of gratifying the gods. One entire book 
of the Rig-veda (the ninth) is devoted to hymns to this 
divine drink. The poets never weary of singing its 
praises. 

Now it is an interesting fact, and one of the highest 
importance in the development of Vedic religion, that the 
fire-priests, or a group of them, succeeded at an early time 
in capturing or assimilating this soma-cult, and making it 
the centre of their most ambitious and pretentious cere- 
monies. In fact, the soma-cult became a kind of hall- 
mark of distinction for a certain class of fire-ceremonies, 
which distinguished them from their less aristocratic rela- 
tives. It was especially in connection with them that one 

^ Other methods of disposing of the_ offerings were known, and 
were practised to some extent even in historic times ; but they were 
of comparatively slight importance. 

120 



THE RELIGION OF THE VEDA 

group of fire-priests succeeded in appropriating to them- 
selves a predominant position in the reUgious hfe of the 
Vedic Aryans. 

Among these fire-priests who cultivated the soma-cult 
there was elaborated a ceremonial which required the use 
not of one, but of three sacred fires at every sacrificial 
performance, and which was more complicated in other 
ways also. Not only more complicated, but more ex- 
pensive ; and thereby hangs a tale. This three-fire ritual, 
centering about the soma-sacrifice, acquired by the times 
of the Rig-veda such a degree of elaborateness and conse- 
quent expensiveness that the ordinary poor man could not 
in the nature of things engage in it. Only princes and 
wealthy men could afford it. It was, therefore, of neces- 
sity not required for the performance of the simpler daily 
rites which every pious Aryan had to perform ; nor for 
such occasional rites as birth, marriage, and funeral cere- 
monies, which, though not of periodic occurrence, neces- 
sarily formed part of the religious duty of all the people. 
The Rig-veda is, in general, a hymn-book for use at 
these three-fire ceremonies. That is, its hymns were, 
in- the main, composed for the express purpose of being 
chanted at these elaborate rites, soma-sacrifices and others, 
which had to be performed with the three sacred fires. 
These hymns were composed by the fire-soma-priests 
themselves, for their own use. They are therefore a 
hieratic literature in a very extreme sense. Not only 
do they reflect constantly the class interests and the class 
viewpoint of their priestly authors, but they devote them- 
selves exclusively to this ultra-hieratic phase of religion, 
the religion centering about the three-fire cult. Not only 
are secular matters not primarily considered at all, but 
even those more popular religious performances are 
ignored, which did not require this elaborate ritual, and 
which formed the staple religion of the great mass of the 

121 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

Aryan people.^ In short, let me make this point very 
emphatic: the reHgion portrayed by the great mass of 
the hymns of the Rig-veda is very far from being the re- 
Hgion of the Vedic Aryans. It is not even the rehgion of 
any considerable section of them. Nay, it is probably not 
the whole religion of any of them. The group of rites 
with which it is (one may practically say) exclusively 
concerned was itself a sort of work of supererogation — 
not absolutely required of anyone, and never performed 
at all except by the aristocracy of the people. 

The theory of this hieratic cult was a very simple 
one of commercial bargaining between gods and men. It 
is frequently stated in pretty bald terms in the texts them- 
selves. '' Give to me ; I give to thee." '' Enjoy the soma, 
satisfy thyself with it ; then turn thy mind to the giving 
of riches," says a Rigvedic poet. The gods want sacri- 
fices, of food and drink, accompanied by hymns, which 
are by this time an integral part of the sacrifice, and in 
which the gods take an aesthetic pleasure. These things 
it is in the power of men to provide. Men, on the other 
hand, want wealth, long life, and the discomfiture of their 
enemies. Such boons are in the gift of the mighty gods 
to whom the three-fire soma-cult devotes itself. The 
whole transaction is then a commercial one. The priests 
are the middle-men. And their commission is the sacri- 
ficial fee (dakshina), which was a very necessary part of 
every sacrifice; without it no sacrifice is complete. The 
very human wants of the priests are, in fact, quite promi- 
nent in most of the hymns; we are seldom allowed to 
forget for long that the poet-priests are after all men, 
and that they make their living by offering these sacrifices 
and chanting these hymns. 

As might be expected, and as I have already hinted, 

* Nearly all of the few Rigvedic hymns of which this is not true 
are later additions to the collection as it stands ; though this does 
not necessarily mean that the hymns themselves are late. 

122 



THE RELIGION OF THE VEDA 

the gods to whom this aristocratic and hieratic cult ad- 
dresses its sacrifices and hymns are a somewhat select 
company. Although they do not form any sharply defined 
class, it may be said of them in general that they are all 
great and powerful gods ; and most of them are originally 
personifications of major powers of nature. The powers 
of the sun, the moon, the sky, the rain, and so on, are 
the naturalistic elements which would most easily im- 
press the consciousness of primitive man. They seem 
most obviously to have the capacity of working man's 
weal or woe. Minor spirits are nearly or quite ignored 
in this hieratic cult of the Rig-veda; they find a place in 
the lower religion of the people. 

But, very significantly as It seems to me, the most 
transparent personifications among the hieratic deities are 
not so much naturalistic as ritualistic entitles. The very 
pantheon is made to center more and more about the sacri- 
fice, preparing the way for the later stage in which the 
sacrifice absorbs the whole content of religion. We have 
already alluded to the fact that the soma-drink, the most 
aristocratic offering, becomes the god Soma, one of the 
most prominent of the Rigvedic gods.* Another god of 
prime importance Is Agni, who is, most transparently, 
Fire; the word agni is the common noun for " fire." A 
naturalistic concept, of course; and, Indeed, there Is no 
Vedic god of whom it is more true that the poets think 
of him all the time as both element and personal god. 
They even at times recognize him in the sun and the 
lightning, in the forest fire, and wherever else fiery ele- 
ments are found. Nevertheless, he is to them first and 

* Later Soma is identified with the moon ; but this seems to me, 
as to most scholars, a secondary development. Professor Hille- 
brandt, however, believes that the identification goes back to the 
earliest times. The question is not important for my present point ; 
there is no doubt that, whatever Soma was originally, most of the 
Rigvedic poets think of him primarily as the deified sacrificial drink ; 
so that he is a primarily ritualistic god to them. 

123 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

foremost the sacred fire of sacrifice; the Messenger be- 
tween men and gods, who carries the offerings to heaven, 
or who by his beacon-flame attracts the gods to them. 
Countless are the epithets and descriptions of Agni which 
refer clearly to his ritualistic character. They overwhelm 
and almost obliterate references to him in his mere natu- 
ralistic guise. It is to this deified Fire of Sacrifice, not 
to fire in general, that one-fifth of all the 'hymns of the 
Rig-veda are addressed. And the same is true of another 
of the transparent personifications in the Vedic pantheon, 
the goddess Dawn, Ushas. Again the word means simply 
Dawn; but again the concept is a thoroughly ritualistic 
one, as the hymns show. Dawn is the goddess who 
gives the signal for the morning sacrifice to start; who 
wakes the pious and generous man that pays the priest 
for the sacrifice (she is besought to let the stingy man 
sleep on!) ; who is the mother of Agni, because the Fire 
of sacrifice is kindled at dawn.^ 

There are, to be sure, other gods, and some of equal 
importance with these, who cannot be said to be personi- 
fications of powers inherently related to the ritual. I 
think, however, that it is no accident that we find it diffi- 
cult to say just what these other gods do personify. They 
are for the most part gods whose original nature was 
already forgotten, probably, even in the times of the 
Rigvedic poets themselves. Some of them are allowed 
a somewhat questionable position in the hieratic cult in 
spite of their non-ritualistic character. For one reason 
or another their position in the general Aryan pantheon 
made it impossible for the hieratic cult to ignore them; 
but it treats them in a rather step-motherly fashion. 
There is, for instance, the majestic Varuna — perhaps the 
leading god of the prehistoric Indo-Iranians, as he at 

*The ritualistic character of this interesting goddess was first 
clearly shown by Professor Bloomfield, in his book, The Religion of 
the Veda, pages 66 ff. 

124 



THE RELIGION OF THE VEDA 

least became the leading god o-f the historic Persians 
(under the name of Ahura Mazda). It is declared in 
the Veda, too, that he is the greatest of gods, the guardian 
of the world-order, the righteous king and judge of the 
universe, the punisher of all evil. In short, he is described 
as a veritable Hindu Yahweh. Yet he has very few 
hymns addressed to him. His share in the hieratic cult 
was insignificant compared to the grandeur attributed to 
him. And his prestige waned as time went on. Why? 
Apparently because he had no special connection with the 
three-fire ritual. 

Most of the old naturalistic gods are treated thus, or 
worse, in the Rigv^edic cult. But there is one god who 
has managed to make himself the favorite of the whole 
pantheon in the Rig-veda, at least judging by the number 
of his hymns, and who yet was not originally ritualistic 
at all, as it seems. This is Indra,^ to whom about a fourth 
of all the Rigvedic hymns are addressed. He is as differ- 
ent from the other gods as can well be imagined. He is a 
god of warriors, not of priests. In fact, he is a perfect 
impersonation of all that we should imagine the rude, 
half-barbarous Aryan chieftains of the time to have been, 
magnified to superhuman size. He is an ideal patron saint 
for the men of war of that time. He is boisterous, 
ferocious, and boastful. He is an enormous eater and 
especialty drinker; he is the chief drinker of the soma, 
the sacred tipple, of which he swallows whole lakes. Most 
of all, his strength and warlike prowess are inconceivably 
great; the poets lose themselves completely in trying to 
describe them. He gets thoroughly drunk on soma, and 

••His origin is obscure; tut he almost certainly represented some 
power of nature. The traditional interpretation makes him a god of 
the thunder-storm. Of late Hillebrandt's theory that he was a 
sun-god has been making some headway against the older one. In 
any case he is the most thoroughly anthropomorphized of all the 
Vedic gods, and therefore the least_ transparent. We can hardly 
imagine that the poets thought of him in terms of any power of 
nature, as a rule. 

125 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

then goes out and slaughters the demons by the hundreds. 
Of course he also helps his worshipers in battle against 
their enemies, the heathen Dasas, the dark-skinned abo- 
rigines whom the Aryans subdued. In short, Indra is the 
national war-god of the conquering Aryans, especially 
of their fighting chieftains. Now we must remember that 
it was just these chieftains and leaders of the people who 
kept the hieratic cult in operation. Its elaborate and 
expensive rites depended on their munificence for sup- 
port; and the priests' living came from the rites. Need 
it surprise us, then, that Indra was made the very head 
and front of the whole cult, the chief beneficiary of the 
soma-sacrifice, its greatest performance ? 

Thus, as finally constituted, the soma-sacrifice comes 
to mean almost the same thing as a sacrifice to Indra. 
Indra, though originally not peculiar to the three-fire 
ritual, becomes the very most typical exponent of it, suc- 
cessfully rivaling Agni, the sacred Fire in person. And in 
the last resort the religion of the great mass of the hymns 
of the Rig-veda appears not as a naturalistic but as a 
ritualistic polytheism. The importance of a god depends 
not on his natural qualities and powers but first and fore- 
most on his position in the hieratic ritual, around which 
everything centers. 

The logical conclusion — or, as one is tempted to call 
it, the reductio ad ahsurdiini — of this tendency is found 
not in the Vedic hymns, but in the pure ritualism of the 
Brahmanas, the later liturgic texts. Even in the hymns, 
however, the way is marked out. The original idea of the 
sacrifice as an appeal to the good will of the gods tends 
to become obliterated. The gods begin to be thought of 
as dependent on the sacrifice for their powers, nay even 
for their very existence. The sacrifice no longer per- 
suades, but compels them. The correct sacrificer owns 
the gods ; they can not choose but grant his wish. Finally, 
after the gods have been reduced to this position of help- 

126 



THE RELIGION OF THE VEDA 

less agents of the sacrifice, it becomes apparent that they 
are no longer needed at all. If the sacrifice can abso- 
lutely control the gods, why can it not just as well work 
the desired result without them? Accordingly, in many 
parts of the Brahmanas the sacrifice (to whom? is a 
question that cannot be rationally answered) is itself 
a direct cosmic force of the first magnitude. If religion 
started with magic, it has now completed the circle and 
returned to magic again. For what is it but pure magic, 
if by correct performance of a ritual act a man can not 
only obtain any desired boon, but directly control the 
operations of all cosmic forces? This is the twilight of 
Vedic ritualism; it is preparing to die of its own inner 
dry-rot. Every vestige of devotion has left it. A system 
of sacrifices with none to sacrifice to is too absurd to live. 
Meanwhile, let us not forget that this hieratic ritual- 
istic religion of the three-fire ceremonies, centering in the 
soma-cult, probably played a very small role in the re- 
ligious life of the people as a whole. It was, as we saw, a 
supererogatory system, which in the nature of things could 
concern only the upper classes of society. All the time 
there existed a whole complex of simpler rites, more or 
less engaged in by the whole people, even by the devotees 
of the three-fire cult, which latter ignored but did not by 
any means oppose them. There was no rigid distinction 
between the two systems. In the popular cult as well 
there were many fire sacrifices; only these were simple 
and required but one sacred fire instead of three.'' But 
the popular religion included a vast deal that was not 
included in the hieratic three-fire cult. It revered many 
gods, godlings, and spirits whom the other ignored. It 
was still primitively animistic; every object, animate or 
inanimate, was or contained a potential deity. In it, too, 

^ Some ceremonies belonged to both cults, and could be per- 
formed with either one or three fires, and with a simpler or more 
elaborate ritual, according to the inclinations and the social and 
financial standing of the sacrificer. 

127 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

we find magical practices, both good and bad, '' white " 
and '' black," in full swing. Moreover, it contained cere- 
monies connected with birth, marriage, and death, and 
with other standard and regular occurrences in the life 
of every man, which for that very reason found no place 
in the aristocratic and hieratic three-fire cult. The great 
repository of materials for this popular religion is the 
Atharva-veda, which was at the beginning not hieratic but 
popular. From it we can get an astonishingly complete 
and very interesting account of the real fundamental 
religious behefs and practices of the Vedic Aryans, much 
better than from the hieratic Rig-veda ; ^ although for 
historic reasons the *' higher " hieratic religion generally 
occupies the attention of students to a much greater extent, 
since mainly out of it grew the later higher systems of 
religion and philosophy.^ 

But I must resist the temptation to say more about the 
homely but perennially interesting popular religion of 
the Atharva-veda. 

Out of the ritualistic polytheism of the Rig-veda there 

'In later times the hieratic cult tried to save itself from dying 
of inanition by assimilating such of the popular rites as were not 
too glaringly out of sympathy with it. The Rig-veda itself, in its 
present form, contains marriage and funeral hymns, and even magic 
charms. But their position — mostly in the tenth book, a late addition 
to the collection — shows that they did not originally belong to it. 
Later many other popular rites were adopted and made part of 
the hieratic system, although they were kept carefully separated 
from the original parts of the system ; they were treated in special 
ritual books, the Grihya Siitras. The fact that it is in these, and 
not in the strictly hieratic Cauta Sutras, that marriage and funeral 
ceremonies are treated, confirms us in regarding the marriage and 
funeral hymns of the Rig-veda as intrusions in the hieratic collection. 
This subject requires for adequate treatment more space than I 
have at my disposal. 

" Sectarian Hinduism, however, with its cults of Vishnu and C^va, 
has its chief source rather in popular beliefs and practices. Traces 
of the beginnings of the C^va cult at least are found in the Atharva- 
veda. Vishnu is indeed a Rigvedic deity (as for that matter ^iva is, 
too, under the name of Rudra) ; but he is a very minor one. His 
later apotheosis into the Supreme God of his sectarians can only 
partly be traced in later Vedic texts. The subject is very intricate 
and obscure. We shall return to it briefly in Chapter VII. 

128 



THE RELIGION OF THE VEDA 

developed, as we saw, a pure ritualism in the Brahmanas, 
which make the sacrifice itself the whole thing, practically 
to the exclusion of the gods to whom the sacrifice after 
all must have been made. By the side of this logical 
monstrosity there was developing out of the same soil a 
growth of much more promise. In quite a considerable 
minority of the hymns of the Rig-veda itself, we find signs 
of a new view of the gods, to which we may give the 
name of Ritualistic Henotheism. By henotheism is meant 
a religious point of view in which the old plurality of gods 
still exists, but is mitigated, so to speak. It is as if the 
religious consciousness, when dealing for the moment 
with any particular god, felt it as an insult to his dignity 
to admit the competition of other deities. And so, either 
the particular god of the moment is identified with all the 
other gods, or rather, they are identified with him, ad 
major em gloriam;^^ or else he is given attributes which 
in strict logic could not be given to any but a sole mono- 
theistic deity. Thus at different moments Indra or Varuna 
or Agni is said to be the sole lord of the universe and of 
all beings, the creator, preserver, and animator of the 
world, the ruler of gods and men, and so on.^^ We are, 
however, still dealing with a ritualistic religion; Vedic 
henotheism is rooted in the ritual. It clearly originated 
in the ritual treatment of various gods. As each god 
came upon the stage in the procession of rites, he was 
accorded impartially this increasingly extravagant praise, 
until finally everything that could be said of all the gods 
collectively is said of each of them in turn, individually. 
Now, however, the henotheistic position was too glar- 
ingly illogical to prevail for long. Such things as the 
creation of the world and the overlordship of all crea- 

*• As in R. V. 5.3, where Agni is successively identified with all 
the chief gods of the pantheon, as if they were all but manifestations 
of Agni. In other hymns other gods are similarly glorified. 

"One of the best examples of his type is the Indra hymn 
R. V. 2.12. 

9 129 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

tures could in reality be predicated of only one person- 
ality. But which one? There was no more reason for 
singling out one of the old ritualistic gods than another. 
All had been tarred with the same stick. The problem 
evidently occupied the attention of the most advanced 
minds of the age. And already in the Rig-veda there 
are a number of attempts to answer it. Two groups of 
ideas may be distinguished in the answers. The one set 
of ideas is developing towards a tentative Monotheism — 
a belief in one sole or at least supreme God; the other 
towards a tentative Monism — a belief in one primal and 
supreme, but not theistic, principle. Both have their roots 
in the ritualistic henotheism to which we have been re- 
ferring. And the two together furnish the keynotes to all 
the higher thought of the later Vedic periods. The best 
of the Upanishads only elaborate and expand and com- 
bine and discuss ideas which are found in essence in the 
quasi-monotheistic and monistic hymns of the Rig-veda. 

One attempt to cut the Gordian knot of Henotheism 
resulted in the setting up of some new and purely abstract, 
non-ritualistic, but still personal, figure, and predicating 
of it, and of it alone, all the things which had been heno- 
theistically predicated of Indra, Agni, or Varuna. The 
new deity is differently named in different compositions 
of this school ; Prajapati, the Lord of Creatures,^^ or Vig- 
vakarman, the All-maker,^^ and so on. In each case it is 
he, and he alone, who created the world and now sup- 
ports and rules it, and the like. Yet it is still a God who 
does this ; a kind of Yahweh or Allah he might well have 
become, if this idea had taken permanent root in Hindu 
soil. It is an abortive attempt at Monotheism, not yet 
Monism. 

More significant for the later history of Indian 
thought is the tentative Monism which rivals the mono- 

"R.V.I0.I2I. 

"R. V. 10.81 and 82. 

130 



THE RELIGION OF THE VEDA 

theistic movement even in the Rig-veda, though only in 
one or two hymns, notably the famous 10.129. That 
remarkable hymn derives the universe not from any god 
or gods, monotheistic or otherwise. It knows no Yahweh 
or Allah, any more than Indra or Varuna. It definitely 
brushes aside all gods ; in fact, it says in terms that they 
are all of late and secondary origin, and know nothing 
about the real beginnings of things. The First Principle 
of this hymn is Tad Ekam — " That One " ; neuter gender, 
lest some theologian should get hold of it and insist on 
falling down and worshiping it. It is wholly impersonal, 
and non-theistic. It is furthermore uncharacterizable 
and indescribable ; without qualities or attributes — ^without 
even negative characteristics; it was "neither existent 
nor non-existent.'' Yet other than It there was nothing 
at all. 

This monistic concept is nothing else than the Brah- 
man of the Upanishads, the One without a second, of 
which, as the later texts say, nothing can be said except 
" No, no " — it is not this, it is not that. To apply any 
description to it is to limit and bound that which is limit- 
less and boundless. " It is inconceivable, for it cannot be 
conceived; unknowable, for it cannot be known.'' This 
philosophic scepticism, too, is clearly heralded in the last 
verses of the Rigvedic hymn 10.129; there is no one that 
can know the beginnings of things. 

It should be made clear that neither the quasi-monistic 
passages of the Rig-veda, nor those of the later Vedic 
texts, down through the Upanishads, which contain the 
final consummation of Vedic thought, hold fast to this 
or any other definite and systematic idea. This idea and 
many others appear and disappear moment by moment, 
and constantly jostle each other. Sometimes they are 
more or less synthetized, but more often they are left 
baldly unreconciled side by side. 

We sometimes hear that the identification of the 

131 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

One Being with the dtman or human soul is the unifying 
thought of the Upanishads. It is true that the Upanishads 
proclaim clearly enough this idea — which, by the way, like 
practically every other doctrine found in the older Upani- 
shads, goes back to the times of the Vedic hymns.^^ Says 
the Upanishadic teacher Uddalaka Aruni to his son : ^^ 
" What that subtle essence is, a having-that-as-its-nature 
is this universe ; that is the Real, that is the Soul, that art 
Thou, ^vetaketu!" And even more clearly and mag- 
nificently the great teacher Yajnavalkya declares : ^^ 
" That which rests in all things and is distinct from all 
things, which all things know not, of which all things 
are the body (that is, the material representation or 
form), which controls all things within, that is thy Self 
(atman), the immortal Inner Controller . . . The Un- 
seen Seer, the Unheard Hearer, the Unthought Thinker, 
the Unknown Knower. There is no other Seer; there is 
no other Hearer; there is no other Thinker; there is no 
other Knower. This is thy Self, the immortal Inner 
Controller. Whatever is other than this is evil." 

These are brave words. And they did not fail to 
bring forth fruit. For they later became the kernel, the 
unifying thought, of the Vedanta, one of the greatest 
philosophic systems of later India — ^perhaps of the world. 
In the last sentence of the quotation, hinting at the evil- 
ness of all that is not the One, that is of all empiric exist- 
ence, we have a foretaste of the Hindu pessimistic view 
of life. But this, as well as the doctrine of transmigra- 
tion, concerns more especially post- Vedic Hindu thought : 
I shall have more to say of both of these subjects in my 
next lecture. 
,, What I want now to emphasize in closing is the fact 

"Its beginnings are discernible in the Rig-veda (cf. R. V. 10.90), 
and still more clearly in the Atharva-veda (cf. A. V. 10.8.44). 
" Chandogya Upanishad 6.8 and following. 
''Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad 3.7. 

132 



THE RELIGION OF THE VEDA 

that, in my opinion, there is no unifying thought in the 
Upanishads. There is no philosophic or rehgious system 
in them, although there are steps towards, or fragments 
of, many philosophic and religious systems. That is, 
many systems could be constructed or developed out of se- 
lected passages in them ; and, in fact, this was done in later 
India. But I think we misunderstand the Upanishads if we 
try to systematize them. Just as in the old Vedic hymns 
we find all of these illustrated in at least equal fulness 
ritualistic, henotheistic, monotheistic, and monistic — so 
we find all of these illustrated in at least equal fullness 
in the Upanishads. They (or at least the older ones) 
contain nothing, or hardly anything, essentially new ; they 
merely carry on further all the numerous lines of thought 
started in the Vedic hymns — the lines of thought whose 
interrelationship I have tried briefly to sketch. The in- 
tellectual average of the Upanishads is higher than that 
of the hymns, because they are later and more advanced ; 
but even the lowest depths of Vedic ritualism can be 
illustrated by Upanishad passages. They are, in their 
essential spirit, tentative, struggling, searching; not dog- 
matic, final, or positive. They are never satisfied with 
any degree of attainment in the formulation of their 
thoughts. Instead they are constantly searching for new 
points of view. With a restless yearning after truth 
which has perhaps never been surpassed and seldom 
equalled, they struggle towards peak after peak of mental 
achievement, only to abandon them unhesitatingly and 
unregret fully, in the hope of finding a higher peak beyond. 
'Between the peaks they sometimes descend into what 
seem to us low swamps of the commonplace, and some- 
times they relapse into states of mind which ought to 
have been long since forgotten; but who can live con- 
stantly on the heights? Absolute Truth is what they 
seek. If they do not find it, that is not their fault. It 
should rather be put down to their credit that they do 

133 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

not delude themselves into thinking that they have found 
it permanently. Let him who has found it permanently 
cast the first stone at them ! 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Indian Religions in General: 

A. Barth: Les Religions de I' hide; translated by J. Wood, The 
Religions of India. Boston, 1882. Though now out of date in 
some respects, this book still remains one of prime value, and is 
the best introduction to the subject. 

E. W. Hopkins : The Religion of India. Boston, 1895. 

Vedic Religion: 

M. Bloomfield: The Religion of the Veda. New York, 1908. The 

best work on the hieratic religion of the Rig-veda; it does not 

attempt to cover the popular religion. 
H. Oldenberg: Die Religion des Veda. Berlin, 1894. 
A. B. Keith : The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda. [In press.] 

Cambridge, Mass., 1917. 
The following are more for the advanced student : 
A. Hillebrandt: Vedische M'ythologie; 3 vols., Breslau, 1891-1902. 

Same work, Kleinere Ausgabe (abridged in one small volume), 

Breslau, 1910. 
A. Bergaigne: La religion vedique. 3 vols., Paris, 1878-1883. Vol. 

4, Index by M. Bloomfield, Paris, 1897. 
A. A. Macdonell : Vedic Mythology. Strassburg, 1897. 
M. Bloomfield: The Atharva Veda. Strassburg, 1899. Source- 
book for the popular religion. 

Higher Thought: 

P. Deussen: Allgemeine Geschichte der Philosophie. Band I. 
Abteilung i : Allgemeine Einleitung und Philosophie des Veda. 
Leipzig, 1894. Abteilung 2 : Die Philosophie der Upanishaden. 
Leipzig, 1899. 

P. Deussen : [Abteilung 2 of the above work, translated into Eng- 
lish by] A. S. Geden, The Philosophy of the Upanishads. Edin- 
burgh, 1906. 

Translations : 

R. T. H. Griffith : The Rigveda. 2d Ed., 2 vols. Benares, 1896. 

W. D. Whitney and C. R. Lanman: The Atharva Veda. Cam- 
bridge, Mass., 1905. ^ r J o 

M. Bloomfield: Hymns of the Atharva Veda. Oxford, 1897. 
[Sacred Books of the East, vol. xlii.] Selection of the most 
interesting materials. -r • • « t» ir 

P. Deussen : Sechzig Upanishads des Veda. Leipzig, 1897. By tar 
the best interpretation of the Upanishads. , o t 

F Max Muller: Upanishads. Oxford, 1879, 1884. [Sacred Books 
of the East, vols, i, xv.] Twelve Upanishads, 



134 



CHAPTER VI 

BUDDHISM 
WITH AN ADDENDUM ON JAINISM 

BY FRANKLIN EDGERTON 

Buddhism may properly be called a Protestant faith. 
It sprang up at a time when Hinduism in the wide sense 
— Indian thought as a whole — had since long passed the 
tentative stage of the old and genuine Upani shads. Those 
works were already enshrined with the still older Vedic 
hymns and the Brahmanas as works of sacred revelation. 
The Brahmanical system was pretty well established in its 
classic form, as we shall try to describe it in our next 
lecture. The common characteristic features of the higher 
Hindu religious and philosophical thought of later times 
were all firmly established. In fact, we shall presently 
see that Buddhism never thought of questioning any of 
those intellectual features of the higher Hinduism. In 
that respect it presented nothing inherently new or hereti- 
cal. Moralizing philosophers, like the Buddha, teaching 
doctrines leading to salvation through right knowledge or 
intuition, are found already in the Upanishads ; and there 
are many such in later orthodox Hinduism. 

Nor is there anything in the Buddhist attitude towards 
the brahmanical rites and ceremonies which made it new 
or necessarily heretical. This may seem strange; for 
certainly the Buddhists absolutely threw overboard all 
sacrifices and other features of the Brahmans' cult. But 
all the monistic passages of the Veda, and especially those 
of the Upanishads, preach contempt for all earthly things, 
or at least indifference to them. And they do not scruple 
to include, sometimes in definite terms, the priestly cult 
among these earthly things, not indeed as evil, but rather 

135 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

as simply beneath the notice of the enlightened. Sacri- 
fices, gifts, prayers, and so on are all nothing to the 
Upanishads in their loftiest moments. Likewise all the 
best of the later systems of Indian philosophy — Sankhya, 
Yoga, Vaigeshika, Vedanta — imply if they do not exactly 
preach a total neglect of the ritual. 

But there is this difference between those systems on 
the one hand and Buddhism, as well as the rival Protest- 
ant sect of Jainism, on the other. The Upanishads, and 
all the orthodox Hindu systems, formally acknowledge 
the authority of the Vedas. In fact, more accurately, 
the Upanishads are themselves part of the Veda. They 
regard themselves, and are regarded in later times, as the 
culmination, the last word, the New Testament, of the 
Vedic religion. As Jesus said, " I came not to destroy 
•but to fulfil," referring to the Mosaic law and the books 
of the Hebrew prophets ; as Jesus, in altering or reversing 
in some points the previous religion of the Jews, regarded 
himself as only perfecting, and by no means as opposing, 
the Jewish religion; just so the Upanishads take the 
position that the Vedic religion is all right as far as it 
goes, but that its final consummation is the Upanishad 
doctrine. And so all the later orthodox Hindu systems 
at least formally recognize the authority of the Vedas, 
and pay lip-service to them, however inconsistent with 
them their real spirit may be. 

The attitude of Buddhism and Jainism is wholly 
different. They definitely and in polemic terms reject 
the Vedas. Not only the Vedas, but the whole religious 
and even the social system of the Brahmans. Not that 
they reject the caste system (as they are sometimes 
erroneously said to have done) ; but they are not willing, 
as a rule, to admit the superiority of the Brahman caste, 
which was a fundamental social dogma of Brahmanism. 
Instead the Buddhists frequently, and often rather po- 
lemically, assert that the kshatriyas or nobles are the first 

136 



BUDDHISM 

caste, instead of being second to the Brahmans, as they 
are in the Brahmanical scheme. The fact is that both 
Buddhism and Jainism sprang up among kshatriya or 
noble circles. The founders of both sects are reputed 
to have been kshatriyas ; and the tradition, whether liter- 
ally true or not, is certainly significant. Their first appeal 
was to kshatriyas, to nobles — although they sought to 
include all castes within their orders, and, in fact, found 
many ready converts among the Brahmans. 

It is for these reasons, rather than because of the 
metaphysical, theological, or ethical views they main- 
tained, that the Buddhists and Jains were and are re- 
garded by the orthodox Hindus as heterodox, and ex- 
cluded from the pale of Hinduism. Had they been will- 
ing to pay lip-homage to the Vedas, and especially to 
recognize the Brahman caste as the nominal leaders of 
society, they might have believed in anything they pleased 
and still passed as respectable, as did various other sects 
whose real opinions differ in no important respect (except 
these) from those of the Buddhists and Jains. 

The Protestant attitude of the Buddhists and Jains 
towards Brahmanism is strikingly illustrated by the lan- 
guages they used in their gospels. They rebelled against 
the Brahman theory that religion was only for the upper 
classes, a theory which finds expression in the well- 
known Brahmanical dogma that ^udras and outcasts 
might not even hear or read the Vedas, the sacred texts, 
much less take part in the services of the ritual. Bud- 
dhism and Jainism were open to all castes and to those of 
no caste. And that their message might be intelligible 
to all mankind, they discarded the Sanskrit language, the 
artificial vehicle of Brahmanical learning and culture, 
and laid down the principle that their gospels should be 
preached in every land in the dialect of the land itself. So, 
whereas all the books of Brahmanical wisdom are in San- 
skrit, which was no popular speech but had a position like 

137 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

that of Latin in mediaeval Europe, the earliest texts of the 
Buddhists and Jains were composed in popular dialects. 

The Buddhists of the northern or Mahayana school 
did not keep to this practice, but in later times took up 
the use of Sanskrit, imitating the Brahmans. But the 
southern or Hinayana school kept closer to primitive 
Buddhism in this respect, as well as in respect of doc- 
trines. It is the southern school that prevails to-day in 
Ceylon, Burma, Siam, and Cambodja, while the Buddhists 
of Nepal, Tibet, China, Japan, and Korea adhere to the 
northern Mahayana. (In India proper Buddhism is now 
practically extinct.) The language in which the South- 
ern Buddhist texts are written is then not Sanskrit, but 
an ancient popular dialect called Pali. This is an Indian, 
not a Ceylonese, dialect ; and we do not know just where 
it originally flourished as a spoken language. To be sure, 
it too has become in the course of time a literary or 
rather sacred and learned language, more or less like 
what Sanskrit was to the Brahmans. The Buddhist monks 
used it for writing and speaking even (occasionally) on 
non-religious subjects. But they never wholly severed 
themselves from the traditions of their religion, which 
demanded that the religion be presented to all peoples in 
their own popular idioms. For although the canon became 
too sacred to be translated into popular dialects, the 
monks composed extensive commentaries in the languages 
of the various countries to which they came. And these 
commentaries served the purpose of making the essence of 
the religion presentable to the common folk, though the 
sacred texts themselves were accessible only to the monks 
and the learned. 

The Pali literature of the Southern Buddhists con- 
tains, then, first and foremost, the sacred texts of the 
Buddhist religion, in the form accepted by this school; 
and secondly, an extensive literature (as yet not very fully 
explored by Europeans) of commentaries and other 

138 



BUDDHISM 

works, mostly of a religious character, at least nominally. 
The sacred canon of the Buddhists is called in Pali the 
Tipitaka (in Sanskrit Tripitaka), which means the Three 
Baskets or Collections. It consists, as the name indicates, 
of three grand divisions: first, the Vinaya Pitaka, or 
Discipline Basket, consisting primarily of rules for the 
behavior of the order of monks said to have been founded 
by the Buddha; secondly, the Sutta (Sanskrit Sutra) 
Pitaka, or Sermon Basket, consisting in the first instance 
of addresses supposed to have been delivered by the 
Buddha, and of other utterances of his, with a not incon- 
siderable amount of other material, whose original right 
to be in the collection is at times questionable ; and thirdly, 
the Abhidhamma (Sanskrit Abhidharma) Pitaka, some- 
times, though questionably, rendered the Metaphysical 
Basket, which contains more technical and scholastic dis- 
quisitions on Buddhist dogmatics and on formal logic. 
All that we can say with an approach to certainty of the 
date of this canorwcal literature is that probably few if 
any changes have been introduced into it since a few cen- 
turies after Christ, while its oldest parts may well go 
back to the times of the Buddha himself, and may even 
contain some of his very words. His dates are computed 
on the basis of the best Buddhist tradition as approxi- 
mately 560 to 480 B.C. 

I have mentioned the chief particulars in which Bud- 
dhism differentiated itself sharply from the general run 
of Hindu systems. It is none the less true, in spite of 
these elements of Protestantism, that it remained a thor- 
oughly Hindu sect. Its most fundamental dogmas — one 
might better say axioms or intellectual points of view — are 
common to all of the higher post-Vedic systems of Indian 
philosophy and religion. In order to understand Buddhism 
at all, it seems to me necessary at the start briefly to out- 
line a few of these basic axioms. It is true that they 
are no more characteristic of Buddhism than of almost 

139 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

all other Hindu sects; but it is none the less true that 
they are absolutely fundamental in Buddhism. I shall 
present them under three headings: first, pessimism; 
second, transmigration (or, as it is better to say in Bud- 
dhism, rebirth), with which is inseparably intertwined 
the doctrine familiarly known as karma or " deed ;" and 
third, salvation or release. 

I. Pessimism. — That all existence — at least all em- 
piric existence in the ordinary sense — ^is evil, is taken for 
granted without question and almost without argument 
by all the great Hindu systems. Already in the Upani- 
shads this belief is seen in process of development. But 
in them, or at least in the oldest of them, it is hardly 
expressed in a clear way. In them it usually takes the 
form of a depreciative view of the empiric world as 
contrasted with the One Ultimate Reality, whatever it 
may be called, Brahman or Atman or Sat (Existent) or 
the like. In their admiration of the perfection of the 
Absolute it seems to them that " Whatever is other than 
That is evil," as in the passage previously ^ quoted and 
in various similar passages. But this is still rather inci- 
dental, almost parenthetical. With the later Hindus it is 
a very different matter. Bred in their bone and marrow, 
and part of their inmost nature, is this belief that all 
life is inherently worthless and base and evil. What are 
commonly regarded as the pleasures of existence are 
not genuine pleasures. For one thing, many of them are 
or may be attended by pain, which, or the fear of which, 
either counterbalances or destroys the enjoyment of them. 
But besides this, all these so-called pleasures are, like 
everything that exists, transitory and undependable, sub- 
ject to destruction at any moment; and when they are 
gone, the recollection of them leaves the misery of life 
darker than ever by contrast. Moreover, the creatures of 
this round of existence are so constructed that even a life 

* Page 132 of this volume. 

140 



BUDDHISM 

of perfect and continuous indulgence would pall at last; 
these joys, as they are vulgarly called, are all illusory 
and bring disgust in the end. Thus in brief do the Hindus, 
when they take the trouble to argue the point at all, 
defend their great thesis that whatever is (in the ordinary, 
empiric sense) is bad. This thesis is formally stated by 
the Buddhists in the first of the four great ** Noble 
Truths " upon which their system rests, as we shall see 
presently. 

(2) Transmigration and Karma. — But if life is 
all evil, does not death bring release from it? By no 
means, say the Hindus. The way out is not so easy as 
that. Death is not cessation of existence. It is only 
passing from one existence into another. " Just as a 
caterpillar, when it comes to the end of a blade of grass, 
gathers itself up together (to go over to another grass- 
blade), even so this Spirit, when it has rid itself of this 
body and cast off ignorance, gathers itself up together 
(to go over into another body) ;" so speaks already an 
Upanishad text.^ In fact, the history of the belief in re- 
birth after death goes back much further than the Upani- 
shads. But I cannot here trace its interesting early de- 
velopment ; it must suffice to say that the later Hindu doc- 
trine of transmigration appears for the first time clearly 
stated in the Upanishads ; and even there only tentatively, 
for older views still persist side by side with it. The 
Upanishads also begin to join with this doctrine of trans- 
migration the old doctrine of retribution for good and evil 
deeds in a life after death. The belief in such retribution, 
in some form or other, is found all over the world, and 
various forms of it are found in different stages of Vedic 
religion. With the transference of the future life from 
a mythical other world to this earth, and with the ex- 
tension or multiplication of it to an indefinite series of 
future lives more or less like the present life, the way is 

'Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad 4.4.4. 

141 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

prepared for the characteristically Hindu doctrine of 
karma or '' deed." According to this doctrine, which all 
Hindus regard as axiomatic, the state of each existence 
of each individual is absolutely conditioned and deter- 
mined by that individual's morality in previous existences. 
A man is exactly what he has made himself and what he 
therefore deserves to be. One of the earliest clear ex- 
pressions of this view is found in this Upanishad pas- 
sage:^ "Just as (the Soul) is (in this Hfe) of this or 
that sort; just as it acts, just as it operates, even so pre- 
cisely it becomes (in the next life). If it acts well it 
becomes good; if it acts ill it becomes evil. As a result 
of right action it becomes what is good ; as a result of evil 
action it becomes what is evil." In short, the law of the 
conservation of energy is rigidly applied to the moral 
world. Every action, whether good or bad, must of 
necessity have its result for the performer of the action. 
If in the present life a man is on the whole good, his next 
existence is better by just so much as his good deeds 
have outweighed his evil deeds. Better — that is, less 
painful; we must not forget that these are merely com- 
parative terms, and that all existence, even the best, is 
really evil. Men of very exceptional virtues may make 
themselves gods; for there are gods, yes and heavens, 
many of them, according to the Hindu view. Only all 
the gods are strictly mortal and are just as much bound 
up in the chain of existences as are men. The life of the 
gods differs from life on earth only in that it is compara- 
tively less wretched, and, to be sure, a little longer; but 
what is a few thousand years more or less in comparison 
with the infinity of aeons over which the misery of exist- 
ence stretches? Conversely, those men who are excep- 
tionally wicked either are reborn as lower animals, or fall 
to one of the numerous hells which counterbalance the 
system of heavens. And all this is not carried out by 

• Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad 4.4.6. 

142 



BUDDHISM 

decree of some omnipotent and sternly just Power. It 
is a natural law. It operates of itself, just as much as the 
law of gravitation. It is therefore wholly dispassionate, 
neither merciful nor vindictive. It is absolutely inescapa- 
ble; but at the same time it never cuts off hope. A man 
is what he has made himself ; but by that same token he 
may make himself what he will. The soul tormented in 
the lowest hell may raise himself in time to the highest 
heaven, simply by doing right. Perfect justice is made 
the basic law of the universe. Opinions may differ as 
to the absolute truth of this theory — I am not discussing 
that; but as to its moral grandeur and perfection I 
really do not see how there can be a difference of opin- 
ion. How clumsy, as an instrument of moral retribution, 
seems in comparison with this the belief of our ancestors 
in a sharp separation of the " sheep '' from the " goats " 
and a once-for-all Day of Judgment, with its final and 
unappealable decree and its sentence for all eternity! 

Transmigration and retribution by karma are then, 
like pessimism, common features of Hinduism which are 
retained in Buddhism and made part of its fundamental 
verities. The Buddhist formulation of the chain of exist- 
ence is found in the second of its four " Noble Truths," 
as we shall see later. This same formulation declares that 
the root of existence, and so of evil, is desire, based on 
ignorance. Because men do not know the truth, they 
cling with their desires to the false joys of existence; 
this causes them to perform acts, and these acts (karma) 
have, as we have seen, their necessary fruition in rebirth. 
Even this full statement is rooted in general Hinduism. 
Already in the Upanishads^ we hear: "This Spirit 
of Man consists simply of desire. As is his desire, so is 
his resolve; as is his resolve, so is the deed (karma) that 
he does; as is the deed that he does, so is that (fate) 
which he attains unto." And again, the perfected soul 

* Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad 4.4.7. 

143 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

is that which " has no desires/' ^ which " is beyond de- 
sire, has dispensed with evil, knows no fear, is free from 
sorrow." ^ 

This unquestioning acceptance by Buddhism of the 
doctrines of transmigration and karma as basic axioms 
is all the more remarkable because of the Buddhistic 
attitude on the subject of the soul. Strange to say, the 
usual Buddhist view is that there is no soul at all, neither 
individual soul nor world soul. How then can there be 
transmigration? Transmigration in the literal sense, 
perhaps not; but there is rebirth, nevertheless. Each liv- 
ing being, according to Buddhism, is made up of five 
constituent elements, called in Pali khandhas (Sanskrit 
skandhas), which compose his personality; there is no 
ego in any other sense. These elements resolve themselves 
at death ; but nevertheless, in some way which the texts 
themselves admit to be " mysterious " and which is, in 
fact, quite inconceivable, they are compelled by the karma 
or actions of the individual in the preceding existence 
to reunite and form a new individual, who is, however, 
the very same as the old, because the karma is imperish- 
able and keeps up the continuity of existence. Buddhism 
is very weak metaphysically ; in fact, we shall see that in 
its best and most typical moods it declines to enter into 
metaphysics at all. It might better have stuck to this rule. 
The doctrine of the khandhas as a substitute for the soul 
is interesting principally because it shows how ingrained 
was the belief in rebirth. It was so ingrained that the 
Buddhists never thought of questioning it, but, in fact, 
based their whole system upon it — although according to 
them there is no soul to transmigrate ! And this forced 
them into the shallow mystery of the khandhas. 

(3) Salvation. — Is there, however, no way in which 
one may finally escape from all existence? Since even 

• Ibid., 4.3.21. 

• Ibid., 4.3.22. 

144 



BUDDHISM 

the best of it is evil, are we hopelessly chained to an eter- 
nity of misery ? Is there no salvation ? All sects answer 
yes ; and, in fact, each sect makes it its prime business to 
point the way to it. That is the aim of religion and 
philosophy in India : to show how man may be released 
from this round of existences, consisting wholly of mis- 
ery. One who has reached the goal, and freed himself 
from the last links of the chain binding him to existence, 
attains Nirvana. This is a term common to all sects; 
and the concept which it covers is practically about the 
same in all, though philosophically there are widely differ- 
ent definitions. Generally speaking, it is at least a cessa- 
tion of conscious individual existence. This need not 
mean what it does mean to strict and original Buddhism, 
absolute annihilation. It may mean perfect fusion of the 
individual personality in the World-soul, the All, the 
Brahman; so in the Vedanta philosophy. It may mean 
total and final separation of the soul from all matter and 
so from all material processes, which include all of what 
we call mentality and consciousness; so in the Sankhya 
philosophy. At any rate, it is always what may for prac- 
tical purposes be called non-existence. If we neverthe- 
less find Nirvana referred to and described, even in 
Buddhist texts, as a state of perfect bliss, which after all 
in strict logic must imply being, we must not press those 
passages too far. They may be merely poetic expressions 
of the devotee's yearning; or they may mark an occa- 
sional lapse into the every-day language of man's more 
primitive feelings and emotions. 

The method by which one may attain Nirvana varies 
to some extent in the several sects. Generally speaking, 
however, the basis of the method is intellectual, or per- 
haps rather intuitive; at least in most cases the sine qua 
non IS the knowledge or realization of some truth. Ignor- 
ance (avidya) is generally the root of existence and so 
of evil ; we have already seen that in Buddhism, for in- 
10 145 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

stance, it is ignorance that causes desire, which causes 
action, which leads to continued existence. Good deeds in 
themselves, certainly, can never bring release ; they result 
in less unhappy existences, but that is all. 

All systems, however, prescribe various preliminary 
steps and practices which they regard as being useful 
in preparing the soul for the reception of the enlighten- 
ment which will finally bring release. And occasionally 
these preliminary steps become so prominent in the minds 
of some sectaries that they obscure, and in some cases 
even obliterate, what was originally the true goal. Chief 
among these avenues of approach to true knowledge, 
which, however, occasionally lead off into seductive by- 
paths, are two. One is devotion to the personality of 
some god or prophet, who is regarded as a kind of per- 
sonal savior or helper on the way to release. The other 
is the practice of asceticism in some form or other, re- 
garded as helping to prepare for enlightenment by freeing 
the individual from attachment to the world, by gradually 
conquering the natural desires of the flesh. 

The three standard Hindu means or aids to attaining 
Nirvana are, then, first and foremost, knowledge of the 
religious truth; second, personal devotion to some god 
or saint around whom the religion centers, and who helps 
his devotees to gain enlightenment; third, the ascetic 
life in some form. Now the regular Buddhist confession 
of faith, repeated by all who adhere to the religion, is 
the thrice-repeated formula called the Three Jewels, or 
gems of the faith : " I go to the Buddha for refuge ; I 
go to the Law (dhamma) for refuge: I go to the Con- 
gregation for refuge." Here are all the three items — 
but with the significant change that personal devotion to 
the Buddha, which implies acceptance of his life as an 
example, is put first. Only second comes the Law — that 
is, the religious truth proclaimed by him. And finally, 
there is adhesion to the order of monks which he is said 

146 



BUDDHISM 

to have founded, the communion of saints ; which involves 
a monastic mode of life. 

We can hardly believe that this creed dates from the 
earliest times. The glorification of the person of the 
Buddha in particular looks secondary ; it has no place in 
the scheme of salvation as it is represented to have been 
laid down by the Buddha himself. It was, by the way, 
carried much farther by the Mahayana or Northern 
Buddhists ; they deified the Buddha outright, and offered 
quasi-brahmanical sacrifices to him, in imitation of the 
Vishnuite cults which make so much of bhakti, " devo- 
tion '' to the god or saint. 

Let us, however, follow the accepted statement of 
the creed, and look into the content of each of its terms 
as they present themselves to the pious believer. 

( I ) The Buddha. — For a long time it has been cus- 
tomary to speak of the date of the death of Buddha, 
traditionally put at about 480 B.C., as the first approxi- 
mately certain date in the history of India. In very recent 
times, however, doubts have been expressed, or rather 
doubts which were expressed much earlier have been 
•revived on the basis of new evidence, as to the historicity of 
the Buddha. It is now doubted by some students of 
Buddhism, whether all the traditional details of the life 
of the Master are not myths, and even whether he existed 
at all as a historical personage. 

Whether these doubts are justified or not, I cannot 
decide. Furthermore, I cannot feel that it is a matter 
of much practical importance. If the Buddha is a myth, 
he is a great and noble myth, and he has played the role 
of a reality in the lives of many hundreds of millions of 
people, who have derived from the example of his sup- 
posed life, as much as from the teachings which pass 
under his name, religious comfort, inspiration, and 
guidance. 

According to Buddhist belief, then, the founder of 

147 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

Buddhism was a man named Siddhartha, of the family- 
Gautama. He was a member of a minor kshatriya or 
noble tribe called the Cakyas, who lived at Kapila-vastu, 
in the foothills of the Himalayas, near the modern Nepal. 
From the tribal name Qakya is derived one of the 
•Buddha's most common titles, Qakyamuni, the Sage of 
the ^akyas. While quite a young man he determined to 
abandon the world, and sought refuge in an ascetic order; 
but he found no peace in it, and left it again. After 
many spiritual struggles he finally discovered that he 
had a new message to proclaim, a new gospel of salva- 
tion. It is at this point, properly, that the title Buddha 
becomes applicable to him; the word means the Enlight- 
ened One, and is, like Christ, a title referring to him as 
founder of the religion. Resisting the temptations of 
Mara, the Evil One, who tempted him to use his new 
knowledge for his own benefit by attaining Nirvana at 
once, he set out to proclaim his message to the world. 
Converting first a few disciples, he founded his order of 
monks (afterwards of nuns also), and thereafter spent 
his life alternately in wandering about and in resting 
with his followers in various places — always preaching 
and teaching. He is said to have lived to be eighty 
years old. 

(2) The Congregation (Sangha). — Departing 
from the accepted order of the Buddhist confession, we 
shall take up next the third of the " Three Jewels," the 
congregation, that is the order of monks and nuns. For 
Buddhism is essentially a monastic religion. It teaches 
that the life of a monk, who has severed all connection 
with temporal affairs, abandoned home, possessions, and 
family-ties, and taken up the homeless life; who subsists 
wholly on alms, and is forbidden to own any property, 
forbidden even to accept in alms anything except the bare 
necessities of life, and of them only barely enough at 
any one time for his own immediate needs, — that this life 

148 



BUDDHISM 

is the one and only mode of life in which one can hope to 
obtain release. And this mode of life is open to all men, 
not limited to any select group or caste. Within the 
order caste-lines are abolished; all monks are brothers. 
Some of the Buddha's immediate disciples are said to 
have been persons of low-caste origin. 

But Buddhism makes a great and all-important dis- 
tinction between monasticism and extreme asceticism. 
What distinguishes the Buddhist order from the numer- 
ous other orders of Indian ascetics, and sects of un- 
organized holy men, as well as from many orders of 
Christian monks, is that the others, or at least many of 
them, regarded self-mortification, sometimes in very ex- 
treme forms, as the most meritorious thing. Buddhism, 
on the other hand, stands definitely opposed to such harsh 
and unnatural practices. Simplicity is rigorously insisted 
upon; but self-torture is as rigorously forbidden. The 
Middle Way, the Way of Peace, Calm, and Composure, 
is what Buddha preaches. Avoid all extremes, the ex- 
treme of asceticism as well as the extreme of worldliness ! 

Why, then, you may ask, should Buddhism advocate 
the monkish life at all ? Why not let men live like normal 
human beings, enjoining them merely to uprightness and 
justice in their dealings with their fellow-men ? Buddhism 
answers: because it is impossible to live in the world 
without taking part in it; without having, at least to 
some extent, worldly interests and so worldly desires. 
Desire is the root of existence, and existence is all evil. 
No one can hope to free himself completely from desire, 
which is the only way to salvation, except by withdrawing 
from the world. 

It should be said that the Buddhist order of monks 
was not, like most Christian orders, a hard and fast 
group, which having once entered one could never leave. 
On the contrary, it was recognized as possible for a man 
to enter the order temporarily, with not even any inten- 

149 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

tion of remaining in it permanently. The great Buddhist 
emperor Agoka is said thus to have entered the order 
several times, for periods of time; and the same was 
frequently done by others. The salutary effect which 
membership in the order brings can be acquired in a lesser 
degree by temporary association with it. Buddhism has 
this feature in common with a number of other Indian 
orders. Of course such temporary association cannot 
lead to the final goal, to the complete cessation of desires 
and so of existence. But, then, neither does permanent 
membership in the order of itself confer this benefit. 
Only a certain state of mind can do that. The monastic 
life is important as one of the necessary preliminaries 
leading to this state of mind ; it is only a means, not an 
end in itself. 

What the real end of the religion is, we learn when 
we take up the third (in the Buddhist formulation the 
second) of the three '' Jewels " of the Buddhist faith, 
namely : 

(3) The Law. — The cardinal doctrine of Buddhism 
is summed up in the formula of the Four Noble Truths, 
attributed to the Buddha himself. These are: 

1. The Noble Truth of Suffering, namely: 

Birth is suffering; old age is suffering; disease is 
suffering ; death is suffering ; sorrow, lamentation, misery, 
grief, and despair are suffering; union with the unloved 
is suffering; separation from the loved is suffering; any 
unsatisfied desire is suffering ; in short, all the five attach- 
ment groups (the five elements of sentient existence, that 
is, collectively, all forms of sentient existence) are 
suffering. 

In this first Noble Truth we have the Buddhistic 
formulation of the common Hindu pessimism with regard 
to the world. 

2. The Noble Truth of the Cause of Suffering, 
namely : 

150 



BUDDHISM 

It is desire, leading to rebirth, joining itself to pleas- 
ure and passion, and finding delight in every existence; 
desire, namely, for sensual pleasure, desire for future 
life, desire for prosperity in this life. 

Here we have the common Hindu view that desire 
is the root of existence, because (though this is not 
clearly stated in the formula) it leads to action, which 
must bear fruit in continued existence. The third Truth 
is a necessary inference from the first two : 

3. The Noble Truth of the Release from Suffering, 
namely : 

It is the complete fading-out and cessation of this de- 
sire, a giving-up, a getting rid, a relinquishment, an 
emancipation from this desire. 

Finally, 

4. The Noble Truth of the Way to the Release from 
Suffering, namely: 

It is the noble eight-fold path, to wit, right belief, 
right resolve, right speech, right behavior, right occupa- 
tion, right effort, right contemplation, right concentration. 

All of the elements of these four Noble Truths are 
elaborated at great length in the technical Buddhist 
works ; especially the last, the eight- fold Noble Path lead- 
ing to the Release from Suffering, which of course is the 
final goal — in short, Nirvana. Its eight stages are made 
to include a complete program of moral and intellectual 
advance, leading to final perfection. Thus, right belief, 
the first of the eight stages, is defined as belief in the 
Four Noble Truths themselves. This is necessary as a 
starting-point. Then, right resolve is the resolve to re- 
nounce sensual pleasures, to have malice towards none, 
and to harm no living creature. Right speech is absten- 
tion from falsehood, slander, harsh language, and fri- 
volity of speech. Right behavior is abstention from the 
taking of life, from theft, and from fornication. Right 
occupation is the shunning of professions and means of 

151 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

livelihood which are in themselves bad and the cleaving 
to those that are good. Right effort is the strenuous and 
heroic and constant endeavor of the mind to get rid of 
all evil and impure quaHties and to cultivate the good and 
pure qualities (which are carefully defined in great de- 
tail). Right contemplation is the life of one that is 
actively conscious of the elements of being without allow- 
ing them to affect him with joy or sorrow. Right concen- 
tration is a state, or rather a series of states, of mystic 
trance, culminating in the fourth and highest of the 
states of trance, " which has neither joy nor sorrow, 
but is contemplation refined by indifference." This last 
state is practically a foretaste of Nirvana — although to 
describe it as such would not be consistent with the Bud- 
dhist theory, for Nirvana can only come after death, 
with the dissolution of all ** form." 

This simple scheme of salvation is the central point of 
primitive Buddhism. As time went on it became more 
and more developed and elaborated and schematized in 
all its details. Indeed, the later Buddhist schools went 
much farther, and attempted to construct elaborate sys- 
tems of metaphysics and psychology, to match the other 
Hindu systems. It seems to have been characteristic of 
early Buddhism that it not only failed to provide much 
of a metaphysical theory, but distinctly took the ground 
that metaphysics was useless, worse than useless, in fact, 
since it distracted the attention from the things that are 
alone worth while. In a very interesting old dialogue*^ 
found in the Sutta Pitaka or " Sermon Basket," a monk 
named Malunkyaputta is represented as coming to the 
Buddha and complaining that the Buddha has not eluci- 
dated such questions as these: Is the world eternal or 
not? Is the world infinite (in space) or finite? Are 

' The Lesser Malunkyaputta^ Sutta, in the Maj jhima Nikaya ; 
translated by Warren, Buddhism in Translations (Cambridge, Mass., 
1896), p. 117 ff. 

152 



BUDDHISM 

the soul and the body identical or not? Does the saint 
continue to exist after death or not? The monk is 
offended by this neglect of questions which he considers 
important, and states frankly his feeling that he cannot 
continue to adhere to the Buddha's doctrine unless the 
Buddha explains these questions. The Buddha answers 
him in this wise : " Suppose a man were wounded with a 
poisoned arrow. His friends would urge him to have it 
treated by a physician or surgeon. Suppose then the 
wounded man should say : * I will not have this arrow 
taken out until I learn to what caste the man who wounded 
me belonged, w^hat his name and family were, what his 
size, physical appearance, and place of residence were, 
and the exact nature of the materials used in making the 
arrow, the bowstring, and the bow.' What would be- 
come of such a man? Would he not die of the poisoned 
wound before he found out the answers to all these ques- 
tions? And what difference do all the questions really 
make? It is just so with the Buddha's doctrine of the 
religious life. The religious life does not depend on the 
nature of the world or on the nature of the soul. What- 
ever the nature of the world or of the soul may be, there 
still remains existence, which is suffering, and the elimina- 
tion of which it is my business to teach. I have not 
elucidated the questions you refer to because they profit 
not, nor do they have anything to do with the fundamen- 
tals of religion, nor do they tend to Nirvana. What I 
have elucidated is only that which does profit, which does 
concern the fundamentals of religion, and which does lead 
to Nirvana, namely this : the truth of suffering, the origin 
of suffering, the release from suffering, and the way to 
the release from suffering." 

The practical ethics of Buddhism, like its most funda- 
mental beliefs, is essentially the same as that of all the 
higher forms of Hinduism. It enjoins patience, kind- 

153 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

ness, long-suffering, meekness, love of all creatures, and 
especially the abstention from doing any wilful injury to 
living beings; the abandonment of all unkindness and 
malice, even towards one's enemies ; truthfulness, justice, 
and in short all the virtues generally accepted by the 
highest ethical systems of the world, including that of 
Jesus. Over all is cast as it were the veil of moderation. 
This may almost be called the cardinal Buddhist virtue, 
or rather a qualification of its entire code of virtues. 
If Buddhism has a distinctive quality on the ethical side, 
it is this. Excessive zeal, even in a cause which is in 
itself righteous, is deprecated, as apt to defeat its own 
ends. This moderation, this avoidance of extremes and 
readiness to meet human nature half way, is probably one 
of the secrets of the enormous success of Buddhism as a 
missionary religion. To mention one example: like all 
higher forms of Hinduism, Buddhism preaches ahinsa or 
non-injury of any living being. This implies, of course, 
abstention from the eating of meat. And good Buddhists 
are therefore specifically commanded to observe a vege- 
tarian diet. Nevertheless, if one is offered hospitality, 
and the meal set before one by the host consists of meat, it 
is not sinful to partake of it. To refuse to do so would 
injure and insult the host, and would do no good, since 
it would not restore life to the slaughtered animal. The 
statement is still found in some even very recent authori- 
ties that the Buddha himself died from indigestion caused 
by a hearty meal of roast pork, offered him by a simple 
peasant (a "son of a smith") at whose hut the aged 
saint stopped one evening. It is too bad that this state- 
ment cannot now be accepted. It illustrates in a very true 
and poignant way the Buddha's attitude on just this sub- 
ject; we can hardly doubt that the Buddha would have 
eaten the meal if It had consisted of pork (even though 
pork Is a particularly unclean meat In India, eaten only 
by the lowest classes). But the fact is that the story is 

154 



BUDDHISM 

based on a misunderstanding of an ambiguous Pali word. 
The Chinese version of the story proves that it was a 
meal of mushrooms, not of pork, which, according to 
tBuddhist tradition, caused the death of the Master. 

Buddhism and Christianity. — ^In recent years it has 
been much discussed whether early Christianity shows any 
signs of influence from Buddhism. The similarities be- 
tween the ethical doctrines of the two religions are obvi- 
ous. But it is now generally admitted that there is no 
particular reason to suspect any interinfluence on that 
ground. It simply means that the highest ethical prin- 
ciples of different parts of the human race tend to co- 
incide. More significant seem to be coincidences in cer- 
tain stories, legends, or narratives, found in the sacred 
or semi-sacred books of the two faiths. There is no 
doubt at all that in the second, third, and fourth centuries 
A.D., if not earlier, some Buddhist legends wandered to 
the west and became incorporated in Christian literature. 
The apocryphal gospels and the lives of the saints contain 
a number of such Hindu — and generally Buddhistic — 
legends. Nay, the story of the life of the Buddha him- 
self is found, in unmistakable form, as the story of St. 
Josaphat ; which name is itself a corruption of the Sanskrit 
Bodhisattva, the title of the Buddha before he became 
buddha C' enlightened ")— that is, the " Future Buddha." 
In other words, the figure of St. Josaphat, who is found 
in the calendar of both the Greek and the Roman 
churches, presents the remarkable spectacle of the incor- 
poration in Christianity, as a saint, of the founder of 
Christianity's greatest rival for world-supremacy — Bud- 
dhism. If there are any Greek or Roman Catholic churches 
dedicated to St. Josaphat, they are really dedicated to the 
Buddha, little as the worshipers may guess the fact. 

Such borrowings as these are, however, comparatively 
late in the history of Christianity. With the canonical 

155 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

gospels the case is much less clear. Some striking paral- 
lels have been pointed out even in them. According to 
the latest pronouncement by the highest authority on this 
subject now living in the world, Professor Garbe, of the 
University of Tubingen,^ there are four narratives in 
the Christian gospels which are probably derived from 
Buddhist sources, through indirect channels of oral tra- 
dition. These are : ( i ) the angel chorus which announces 
the miraculous birth of the Saviour; (2) the temptation; 
(3) the miraculous walking on the water of the disciple 
(Peter), with his rescue by the Master when by reason 
of insufficient faith he began to sink ; (4) the miraculous 
feeding of the multitude.^ 

The question whether particular stories in the Qiris- 
tian gospels are borrowed from similar Buddhistic stories 
or not is a difficult one to decide, because of the lack of 
definite criteria for judging. There is as yet no agree- 
ment among scholars on the subject. Such borrowing as 
may have taken place must have been mostly from Bud- 
dhism into Christianity, and not vice versa, because most 
of the sacred texts of Buddhism go back to pre-Christian 
times.^^ But at any rate, if there were such borrowings, 
we may be sure that they were not numerous. In the 
main. Buddhism and Christianity are certainly inde- 
pendent of each other, in their sacred stories as well as 
in their ethical principles. 

* In his book Indien und das Christentum, Tubingen, 1914. 

® The most complete collection of parallels between the sacred 
books of Buddhism and Christianity is found in the work of Albert J. 
Edmunds, Buddhist and Christian Gospels, Philadelphia, 2 vols., 
1908. Edmunds, however, does not believe that most of his parallels 
are borrowed. To him they mostly indicate only the general simi- 
larity between the two religions. Garbe, in the above-mentioned 
work, acknowledges his indebtedness to the work of Edmunds. 

*"The contrary has been maintained by some in the past, and 
is argued very recently by J. Kennedy in the Journal of the Royal 
Asiatic Society for April and July, 1917. Kennedy, whose articles 
have appeared since I wrote the above, thinks such borrowings as 
occurred in the earliest Christian times were in the other direction — 
from West to East. His arguments do not convince me. 

156 



BUDDHISM 

Addendum : A Brief Note on Jainism. 

About the same time that Buddhism was foimded, 
another very similar heretical sect arose, which is known 
as Jainism. It is said to have been founded by a some- 
what older contemporary of the Buddha, named Vardha- 
mana; he is commonly called Mahavira, which means 
Great Hero, and is, like Buddha, only a title of respect 
given to the Master by his followers. Like Buddha, 
Vardhamana was a kshatriya, and his religion is similar 
to Buddhism in its attitude towards Hindu orthodoxy. 
Indeed, its tenets generally are very close to those of 
Buddhism. It does not, however, emphasize the virtue 
of moderation which is so important in Buddhism. And 
in its canonical texts, at least in their present form, there 
is not the aversion to abstract philosophy that is found 
in early Buddhism. There is, on the contrary, a great 
deal of speculation, though of a very crude sort; meta- 
physically, Jainism ranks low among Hindu systems. I 
will mention only one of its most curious beliefs; it is 
that there are individual, separate, living souls in abso- 
lutely all parts of nature. Fire, wind, stones, wood, in 
short all vegetable and inanimate nature is peopled by 
souls, just like animal souls, and like them included in 
the range of transmigration, so that it is conceivable 
that a man might be reborn not only as a worm or a 
gnat (as all Hindus believe) but even as a stick or a 
stone. This is not a primitive animism, though it is 
equally crude when stated thus baldly, and has not the 
excuse of the naivete and ignorance of primitive ani- 
mistic tribes. But the Jainistic theory is simply a redtic- 
tio ad absurdum of the Hindu theory of transmigration. 

On the practical side, Jainism is characterized on the 
one hand by an extreme asceticism, and on the other 
by an extreme devotion to the doctrine of ahinsa or non- 
injury of living beings. This latter doctrine, as we have 
seen, is common to all higher formes of Hinduism, includ- 

157 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

ing Buddhism. But perhaps no other sect has carried 
it as far as Jainism. The saving grace of Moderation, 
the Middle Way to which Buddhism is devoted, is lack- 
ing in Jainism. No Jain monk ( for there is an order of 
monks in Jainism, too) is allowed to travel about during 
the rainy season, though at all other seasons he is, on the 
contrary, forbidden to stay in any one place for more 
than a very short time. The reason for this is that in 
the rainy season, in India, it is impossible to walk abroad 
at all without involuntarily crushing many of the tiny 
insects which swarm underfoot in the soggy earth. ^* 
Similarly, good Jains are supposed to use, and many of 
them still do use, strainers in drinking water, lest inad- 
vertently they should swallow imperceptibly small insects 
in the draft. They devote themselves to building hos- 
pitals for animals, in which there are wards for insects, 
fleas, lice, and so on. In short, they almost make a laud- 
able virtue into a ridiculous absurdity. 

Another sign of the marked lack of moderation among 
the Jains is their extreme asceticism. This, of course, 
they have in common with many Hindu sects, some of 
which fully equal them in it; but, as aforesaid, they 
differ markedly from the Buddhists on this point. It is 
a meritorious act to the Jains to perform or submit to 
almost any kind of self-torture. Some of them regard 
suicide by slow starvation as the crowning merit of all, 
and as insuring Nirvana. (Buddhism definitely forbids 
suicide in any form. ) One of the two Jain sects, which 
claims, apparently with some show of justice, to be the 
more original in its doctrines and habits, requires that 
its monks shall go absolutely naked. This branch, 
called the Digambaras or " Sky-clothed," is to be sure the 
less numerous of the two ; most present-day Jains belong 

"To be sure, this particular manifestation of ahinsa is shared 
by many other Indian orders ; and Buddhist monks are not wont to 
travel during thq rains, 

158 



BUDDHISM 

to the other sect, the ^vetambaras, or " White-clothed." 
Women are admitted to the order of the ^vetambaras, 
whereas for obvious reasons they are excluded from the 
Digambara order, and hence denied the possibility of lead- 
ing the religious life. Apparently the only hope for a 
woman of the Digambara sect to attain Nirvana is to 
acquire enough merit to be reborn as a man. Even among 
the less extreme ^vetambara Jains, violent asceticism 
is regarded as one of the most certain ways of acquiring 
merit. 

Jainism, unlike Buddhism, has never been carried out- 
side the bounds of India. But it has scored at least this 
triumph over Buddhism, that whereas the latter is now 
practically extinct in India proper, Jainism still flourishes 
there. There are between one and two million Jains in 
India, largely in the west and southwest. They are, in 
spite of their extreme tenets, on the whole, a highly re- 
spectable and prosperous class, consisting largely of mer- 
chants, and to a great extent making very ordinary and 
prosaic works of charity take the place of the originally 
much more ascetic performances required by the prin- 
ciples of their religion. These principles tend nowadays 
to show themselves for the most part only in what seem 
to us somewhat whimsical and fantastic occasional appli- 
cations of charity, as in their insect-hospitals and the like. 

The sacred texts of Jainism are written in a popular 
or Prakritic dialect, which has become for Jainism what 
Pali is for Buddhism. In eschewing the cultivated San- 
skrit the original Jains signalized their opposition to Brah- 
manism and their appeal to all classes of the population 
without regard to caste, just as the Buddhists did. In 
later times, however, again like the Buddhists (of the 
northern school), growth of respectability among the 
Jains brought with it to some extent conformity in the 
matter of language as in other respects ; and in mediaeval 
times Sanskrit was to a large extent used by Jain writers, 

159 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

although, to be sure, it was more in secular than in re- 
ligious works that it was used. The Jains of mediaeval 
India concerned themselves very extensively with the 
literature of fables and stories; we owe to them a large 
number of collections of this type of literature, which 
average a very high degree of artistic excellence. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Buddhism : 

H. C. Warren : Buddhism in Translations. Cambridge, Mass., 1896. 
An admirable work, giving a systematic view of Buddhism by 
carefully chosen and well-arranged selections of translations 
from the original sources, with sufficient introductory and ex- 
planatory materials to enable the beginner to follow intelligently. 

Hermann Oldenberg: Buddha. Translation of the ist German edi- 
tion, by Hoey, London, 1882. 

T. W. Rhys Davids : Buddhism. London, 1894. 

T. W. Rhys Davids : Buddhism. New York, 1896. 

H. Kern: Manual of Indian Buddhism. Strassburg, 1896. This 
book is more useful for the scholar and advanced student than 
for the beginner. 

Mahayana or Northern Buddhism : 

D. T. Suzuki : Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism. London, 1907. 

Buddhism and Christianity: 
(See notes 8 and 9 above.) 

Tainism: , n . . T * 

Mrs S. Stevenson : The Heart of Paimsm. London, 1915. 
H jACOBi- Gaina Sutras. Oxford, 1884, 1895. [Sacred Books of 
' the East, vols, xxii and xlv.] Translation of texts, with valuable 
general introduction. 



x6o 



CHAPTER VII 

BRAHMANISM AND HINDUISM. 
BY FRANKLIN EDGERTON 

I. BRAHMANISM 

We have seen how the hieratic cult of the Veda de- 
veloped into a formalistic, cut-and-dried system of cere- 
monies, lacking in both truly intellectual and truly devo- 
tional elements, and centered entirely in the hands of a 
class of priests. In so far as the ceremonies of this 
priestly cult concerned only the original hieratic ritual 
of the three sacred fires, centering in the soma-sacrifices, 
its doom was sealed. It was too specialized, too remote 
from the great mass of the people, to survive after it had 
been deprived of all intellectual and devotional back- 
ground. The soma-off erings and the other performances 
of the three-fire cult fell into disuse at an early date. 
For many centuries now they have played no real part 
m the religious life of India. Nominally they are still in 
effect. The Vedic texts which prescribe them are still 
extant and are still supposedly sacred and binding. From 
time to time isolated enthusiasts have continued to per- 
form some of them. In medieval India an attempt was 
even made to provide them with a philosophic basis, in 
the form of the Mimansa system of philosophy. But it 
has had little practical effect. 

Perhaps the priestly custodians of this cult saw the 
writing on the wall, and cast about for some means of 
safety from the impending doom. At any rate, with or 
without such intention, there was grafted on to the old 
stock a thriving branch from the living religion of the 
people, which infused a new life into the whole, and which 
in time virtually became the whole — as the old, strictly 
11 i6i 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

sacerdotal part of the cult gradually perished. As we 
have seen, the popular religion of Vedic times contained 
(along with many less innocent features) a large num- 
ber of regular ceremonies pertaining to definite points in 
the life of every normal man, such as birth-rites, rites 
performed at reaching puberty, marriage and funeral rites, 
and others. All Aryans were expected to perform these, 
as a matter of course. Tlie hieratic cult did not deal 
with them, not because it opposed them at all, but because 
they were simply none of its business. But in later times 
the priests perhaps saw how much they could gain by 
making these popular rites their business. At any rate, 
whether with this conscious purpose or not, they adopted 
them and made them a regular part of their system, al- 
though they kept them carefully distinct from the other, 
strictly hieratic rites. And once undertaken, the work 
of adoption was carried out with the utmost thorough- 
ness. The entire stock of priestly learning was put at 
the disposal of these popular ceremonies. They are de- 
scribed in the Grihya Sutras or books of the " domestic " 
rites (as distinguished from the Crauta Sutras, the books 
of the hieratic or " revelational " rites, gruti). These 
Grihya Sutras are compilations made in the latest Vedic 
age. But they employ the sacred mantras or texts of the 
early Vedic literature in conducting these originally un- 
hieratic, domestic rites. 

The classical law-books (dharma-Qastras), which are 
the real authorities of institutional Brahmanism, make a 
list of twelve of these personal ceremonies, which they 
call samskaras, and which are supposed to be particu- 
larly pious and efficacious. They begin with the rite of 
impregnation and end with marriage. Among the more 
important of the intermediate ceremonies are those that 
pertain to birth and name-giving, and to the upanayana 
or " initiation." This last is supposed to be performed 
for every boy of the three upper castes, that is every 

162 



BRAHMANISM AND HINDUISM 

Aryan boy/ about the age of puberty. It consists in the 
boy's formal induction into the Hfe of a student of the 
Veda, which is the first of the four agramas or regular 
stages in the life of an Aryan. During the period of stu- 
dentship, whose duration was indefinite, the student 
(called a brahmacarin) lived with his guru or teacher 
and acted as a sort of body-servant to him. At the end 
thereof he returned to his father's house, and shortly 
after was expected to marry and set up a home of his 
own. By so doing he entered the second agrama or stage 
of life, that of the householder (grihastha). To beget a 
son was a religious duty to the ancestors of the family, 
that the rites to the Manes might be performed.^ 

Marriage was the last of the twelve samskaras. Entry 
into the two last agramas or stages of life was not marked 
by any special ceremony. These last two stages were 
those of the forest-dwelling ascetic (vanaprastha) and 
the homeless wandering mendicant (parivrajaka, sam- 
nyasin). And as a matter of fact they were probably 
always more or less theoretical and certainly optional. 
But there were certain other ceremonies, not called sam- 
skaras, which were nevertheless quite as important as 
any of the samskaras; especially the funeral rites, and 
the oblations to deceased ancestors, as well as a large 
number of minor and recurrent rites and observances. 

These domestic observances still form the center of 
Brahmanism as a formal religion. The extent to which 
they are observed differs in different castes, and also 
to a large extent in different localities and families. All 
Brahmans in good standing observe at least the more im- 
portant of the samskaras, as well as the funeral rites and 
the oblations to ancestors, and also some simple daily 

* Compare page i66. Women were not allowed to study the 
Veda, and therefore this rite was not performed for them. 

' In case no son was born to a man, he might adopt or purchase 
one ; or his^ daughter's son, or some collateral male relative, might 
under certain conditions be regarded as belonging to him, 

163 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

rites. Other castes are less strict in these observances. 
And, generally speaking, the lower a caste is, the less its 
members attend to them. No samskara or other impor- 
tant rite can be performed without the aid of at least 
one Brahman as officiating priest ; at some of them many 
Brahmans are or may be employed. Some of the lower 
castes are, however, regarded as too degraded to be 
allowed to have any such rites performed for them. No 
self-respecting Brahman would perform any rite for an 
outcaste or a man of a very low caste. The law-books 
themselves exclude all Cudras from the study of the Veda, 
and therefore from the upanayana or " initiation," which 
marks the beginning of the studentship. 

From these remarks it will be already apparent that 
the institution of caste is a matter of prime importance 
in Brahmanism. In fact, it has been said that to many 
Hindus their caste is their religion. Some of them 
hardly have any other. Brahmanism is a form of society, 
a social institution or system of institutions, quite as 
much as a religion. As I pointed out, the Hindus are 
too apt to think of the whole duty of man as consisting 
in the correct observance of formal rules of conduct; 
and for a Hindu this always means the rules in force in 
the caste to which he happens to belong. Even the ob- 
servance of the brahmanical domestic rites is less a per- 
sonal than a caste matter. One observes more or less 
of them, not in accordance with his personal convictions 
or pious desires, but in accordance with the custom of 
his caste or sub-caste. To violate caste custom is to run 
the risk of being excommunicated, that is, expelled from 
the caste; and this is the most terrible fate that can 
befall a Hindu, since it practically cuts him off from all 
intercourse with men, unless Europeans will associate 
with him. Now one may believe practically anything he 
pleases without losing caste standing. One may believe 
in any god, or disbelieve in all. But one must live cor- 

164 



BRAHMANISM AND HINDUISM 

rectly, eat and drink correctly, go through a certain mini- 
mum of formal ritual observances (mostly implying little 
or no actual belief), and, above all, marry correctly. 
Anyone who marries outside his own caste is instantly 
expelled. But one may lose his caste-purity even by quite 
involuntary contamination from lower castes. If the 
shadow of a low-caste man falls on a Brahman, the 
Brahman is polluted and must go through a ceremonial 
of expiation. Some castes are so low that their mere 
presence within a certain distance of those of higher 
caste is defiling. Naturally, a high-caste man must of 
necessity give a great deal of thought and care to the 
observance of the enormous mass of these caste regula- 
tions, some of which are by no means simple. It is not 
strange that some such men hardly find time to think 
of any other sort of religion. 

We cannot now concern ourselves with the origin of 
caste as a social institution. It is rather with its religious 
aspects, as a part of the brahmanical theory, that we 
have to deal. That theory holds that caste differences 
are biological, not social. Men can no more change their 
caste than they can their species, in this life. A Qudra 
may by virtuous deeds become a Brahman in his next 
existence, by the operation of " karma ;" ^ so may a sheep 
or an ape become a man, in exactly the same way. Even 
the Rig-veda, in a very late stanza,^ says that the four 
main castes were created from different parts of the 
body of the First Being; Brahmans from his head, ra- 
janyas or kshatriyas from his arms, vaigyas from his 
thighs, and gudras from his feet. This theory remained 
standard throughout all the later brahmanical literature. 
It indicates the permanence of caste divisions, as well 
as the relations of the four supposedly original castes. 

*See page 142 ff. 

* Rig-veda, 10.90.12. This is the only clear reference to caste in 
the Rig-veda. In all other Vedic works it is well known. 

165 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

First of all come the Brahmans, the priests. Next come 
the kshatriyas or rajanyas, theoretically warriors, or as 
we should say nobles ; kings belong to this caste. Thirdly 
come the vaigyas, originally all of the free Aryan popu- 
lation not included in the first two castes, agriculturists, 
merchants, and free artisans. Last come the gudras, 
originally identical with the dark-skinned aborigines 
whom the Aryans subdued and enslaved, and so theo- 
retically serfs. The first three castes, who alone are sup- 
posed to be of Aryan descent, are called " twice-born," 
because only they, and not the gudras, can go through the 
ceremony of upanayana or brahmanical initiation, which 
is regarded as constituting a spiritual " second birth." 

The Brahmans did not secure their position at the 
head of society without opposition. You will remember 
that the Buddhist texts show signs of a definite rejection 
of their claims on the part of the kshatriyas, the nobles. 
The Brahmanical books themselves throw out dark hints 
which suggest that even bloody conflicts may have signal- 
ized the struggle between the spiritual and the lay nobility. 
But probably religious rather than worldly weapons were 
the principal deciding factors. The steps of the process 
are not discernible. This much is clear, that already in 
the Brahmanas,^ that is in the chronological period im- 
mediately following that of the early Vedic hymns, the 
caste system was well developed, and the claims of the 
priestly caste had already attained the extravagance of 
later times. The priests are already called " gods on 
earth," an epithet which is given to them throughout all 
the later Sanskrit literature. Indeed, this startlingly bold 
term, and the position of the Brahman caste generally, 
can best be made to appear reasonable and logical in con- 
nection with the theory of the ritualistic religion of the 
Brahmanas. As we have seen® this ritualistic religion 

^See page 115. 
*See page 126. 

i65 



BRAHMANISM AND HINDUISM 

regards the sacrifice as the all in all. The sacrifice con- 
trols the gods, and usurps their functions; we sometimes 
hear even that it brought the gods into existence or raised 
them to divine rank. But the sacrifice, in turn, is abso- 
lutely in the control of the Brahmans. From this point 
of view, then, it is no wonder that the Brahmans can 
claim to be fully equal in rank to the old naturalistic gods. 

It is convenient to apply the term Brahmanism to this 
social-religious system, the very heart of which is the 
hierarchy of castes, with the Brahmans at the head. 
Other castes obtain a place in the system by giving full 
recognition to the Brahmanical supremacy, and by employ- 
ing the Brahmans to perform for them the domestic 
rites and observances which constitute practically the 
whole religious content of Brahmanism, outside of the 
strict social laws of caste per se. 

But as we have hinted, it is not all castes that are 
fortunate enough to be allowed even this qualified posi- 
tion in Brahmanism. Instead of the four theoretically 
original castes, Hindu society is now split up into very 
numerous castes and subcastesJ And many of them are 
so low that Brahmans will not perform any rite for them. 
This automatically shuts them out from the fold of 
Brahmanism. 

What remains then for these unfortunates by way of 
religion? Of course they may embrace a heterodox, non- 
Brahmanical sect, like Buddhism, or (since that is now 
extinct in India proper) Jainism. Since the invasion of 
the Turks, Mohammedanism, too, offers them a refuge; 
and since very modern times. Christian missionaries have 
worked among them. Most of the converts to Christian- 
ity, as a matter of fact, belong to these *' despised and 
rejected " classes. 

'Sir A. Baines, in his book on Ethnology and Caste, gives a 
tabular list of over four hundred, with a list of their numbers, based 
on census returns. 

167 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

Nevertheless, to become a Christian or a Mohamme- 
dan, or even a Jain, means separation from caste, with 
all the spiritual misery which that momentous step is apt 
to occasion in India. It is possible to embrace a more 
democratic, as well as more living, form of religion than 
Brahmanism, with its dead formalities and lack of real 
devotion; and that, too, without definitely breaking with 
the Brahmanical system. There are religious sects in 
India which are open to all castes and to those of no caste ; 
which, moreover, understand religion as a very different 
matter from a mere set of formal observances ; and which 
are yet tolerated by Brahmanism. In fact, many Brah- 
mans, perhaps even most Brahmans, belong to one or 
another of these sects, in sympathy at least, if not in 
open and formal allegiance. And yet they remain mem- 
bers of the Brahman caste, in good and regular standing. 

II. HINDUISM 

These sects are called by the collective name of Hin- 
duism; and nearly all of them are devoted primarily to 
the worship of one of the two great gods Vishnu and 
^iva, or of gods identified with one of them, or of 
their feminine counterparts, or of goddesses identified 
therewith. 

The name Hinduism properly applies to these sec- 
tarian religions as a group, because nearly all Hindus 
belong to one or another of them. By Hindus in this 
sense I mean all natives of India who are neither Moham- 
medans nor Christians, nor yet adherents of some sect 
(such as Jainism) which is regarded as unorthodox and 
so outside the pale of Hinduism in the strict sense. The 
tests of orthodoxy are not always simple or easily defined. 
As we saw in the case of Buddhism, they tend to be more 
formal than intellectual.^ They are apt to include a vague 
homage to the Veda as a supposedly holy literature, and 

*Cf. page 135 ff- 

168 



BRAHMANISM AND HINDUISM 

a practical acceptance of the caste system, with the su- 
premacy of the Brahmans, as far as every-day life is 
concerned. The first requirement is the more easily com- 
plied with since few people, even among the Brahmans 
themselves, have much idea of what is really contained 
in the Veda. The second may be made of slight im- 
portance by the device of centering the religion around 
an ascetic or monastic order. For ascetics are regarded, 
even by the most orthodox of Brahmans, as more or less 
outside of caste, or perhaps as forming a sort of distinct 
caste or castes of their own. Thus the Lingayats, a large 
sect of ^ivaite sectarians in South India, regard them- 
selves as a separate and distinct caste. And most ascetic 
orders, of whatever sect, are pretty free in admitting men 
of any caste. This does not prevent those sectaries who 
keep to the lay or worldly life from being rigid adherents 
of caste. 

The Hindu sects result from very different tendencies, 
more or less intermingled, and really united only by a 
common inclination for something in the way of religion 
. which Brahmanism could not furnish. At least three 
such streams of influence seem to be discernible from 
the start. One comes from above, so to speak. It is 
the spiritual heir of the Upanishads. It is speculative and 
intellectual, or mystical, or both by turns. The second, 
on the other hand, comes from below. It is popular and 
emotional. It seeks a religious haven for the humble 
and oppressed, and for all those who stand without the 
pale of Brahmanism from necessity, as contrasted with 
the intellectual leaders, who were inclined to neglect 
Brahmanism from choice. 

For their numerical strength, the Hindu sects are 
of course much more indebted to the second of these two 
influences than to the first; although it has frequently 
happened that at least the original leaders of sects have 
been men of high social position, and of rather reflective 

169 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

than emotional types of mind. But there is still a third 
source of Hindu sects, somewhat related to the second, 
which may have been, all in all, more important than 
either of the other two. Many of the deities which are 
worshiped in modern India, though they are usually re- 
garded as incarnations or forms of Hindu deities, are in 
fact originally the gods of old non- Aryan tribes, or, at 
any rate, gods who at first had no place in the Hindu 
pantheon, thinly veiled by their adopted Hindu guise. 
There is reason to believe that this process of adoption 
has very ancient precedents. 

All three of these elements seem to be discernible 
with especial clearness in the history of the sects of Qiva. 
This god is identical with the Vedic Rudra, who in the 
Rig-veda is a malevolent, destructive deity, a god of 
pestilences and horrors, whose wrath is deprecated, and 
in whom there are few signs of the graciousness which 
most of the Vedic gods are capable of showing. In 
later times the name ^iva came to be given to him eu- 
phemistically ; it is an epithet meaning "kindly,'' and its 
application to Rudra means not that he was kindly, but 
that his worshipers wished he would be. The god has 
a great many other names — a thousand are enumerated 
later — and many of them are found already in the later 
Vedic Samhitas, where Rudra in his various " forms " 
already has a noticeably greater importance than in the 
Rig-veda. In the Yajur-veda he is a god of mountains 
and forests, of wayfarers, travelers, and merchants, of 
soldiers and (therefore) of brigands and thieves; also of 
ascetics who dwell in forest solitudes or wander about 
without homes ; and in general of people who are not in 
good society — of abandoned, desperate characters, the 
offscourings of the lands. Already we see him assuming 
the forms of the later Civa, whose detractors called him 
the god of outcasts and people of no account. There is 
little doubt that in the figure of this wild, morose deity 

170 



BRAHMANISM AND HINDUISM 

there are blended some old barbarous gods of the pre- 
Aryan inhabitants of India. It may even be that Rudra 
himself, the Vedic prototype of (Jiva, was a barbarian 
god who thus early intruded into the very sanctuary of the 
hieratic religion. At any rate, Qiva remains, throughout 
all his history, most of all a stern, rather harsh god. 
To be sure, many of his devotees see the other side in 
him. To some of them he appears as kindly and loving. 
Even his kindness, however, is most apt to be won by 
stern acts of asceticism and even self-torture. He is the 
great favorite of ascetics; in fact, he is himself thefr 
heavenly prototype. Ashes are one of his emblems; his 
devotees smear their bodies with them. Other signs are 
the human skull and the trident, and the berries called 
rudraksha ('* Rudra's Eye"), which are strung together 
in rosaries and worn by his worshipers. 

Yet (Jiva the stern Destroyer, who to his devotees is 
of course All-in-all, is also in another aspect particularly 
a creator, a god of generation. As such his emblem is the 
phallus, the linga as it is called. These lingas or phallic 
images are worn to this day by many hundreds of thou- 
sands of ^ivaites. This side of Qiva is one of the clearest 
indications of his barbaric, non-Aryan connections. For 
phallic worship never found a place in any form of Brah- 
manism; and on the other hand there are one or two 
obscure references in the Veda which are believed to indi- 
cate that the dark-skinned aborigines whom the Vedic 
Aryans conquered did devote themselves to such forms 
of religion. However this may be, as it appears in Qiva- 
ism to-day it is all very much softened down. The linga 
is scarcely more than a conventional symbol of (Jiva; 
most people hardly ever think of its original significance. 
As a rule, it can hardly be said to be in any way indecent 
or repellent, even to a European mind. Nor are there 
any obscene or indecent rites connected with most sects 
of Civaites. 

171 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

The same cannot be said for Qiva's consort and femi- 
nine counterpart, Parvatl. She has if possible even more 
names than her husband; and she is certainly quite as 
composite as he. But even more in her case than in his 
there are apt to come to the surface the two phases of 
character which are least sympathetic to westerners, the 
terrible, and the obscene. One of her stock names, Uma, 
is thought by some to be a Dravidian name.^ And cer- 
tainly it is with her, if with any Hindu goddess, that 
those ferocious goddesses are identified, who even yet 
exact bloody sacrifices from the imperfectly Hinduized 
Dravidian villagers of Southern India. All over India 
she is known as Devi — that is, The Goddess, par excel- 
lence. All over India, too, she is known as the notorious 
and bloodthirsty Kali or Durga, in whose honor the for- 
mer brigand sect of the Thugs used to slaughter their 
victims. As the Qakti or " Energy " of her consort Qiva, 
she is moreover a personification of the female power of 
generation. In this form she is the chief deity of the 
sects called Qaktas or Tantrists, who regard her as su- 
perior even to ^iva, and worship her symbol — sometimes 
a living symbol — in ways which may perhaps best be left 
to the imagination. It should be said, however, that the 
extreme branch of this sect does not dare show its head 
openly. No Hindu dares to admit that he belongs to it. 
It is, in fact, merely a form of debauchery, whose secret 
adherents probably for the most part are either degener- 
ates or arrant hypocrites. It is safe to say that few of 
them honestly conceive that they are conducting a form 
of religion. It would, however, be most unfair to de- 
scribe all Qaktas thus. Their less extreme division un- 
doubtedly includes many thoroughly sincere and not im- 
pure persons. 

More sympathetic to our western minds is the cult 

• At present, to be sure, Uma is one of the kindly, not one of the 
terrible, forms of Parvatl. 

172 



BRAHMANISM AND HINDUISM 

of Vishnu, the other great god of Hinduism. He, too, 
was originally a Vedic deity, this time under the same 
name. He was apparently a sun-god in origin ; even the 
later Vishnu 's symbolized by the disk (originally of the 
sun), and riclv.> upon the heavenly eagle, who is clearly 
the sun-bird. But the Vedic Vishnu is a very minor 
and colorless figure. It is still one of the great puzzles 
of Indian scholarship, how he happened to be chosen for 
such an exalted destiny. About all we hear of him in the 
Rig-veda is that he traverses the universe in three enor- 
mous strides (a figurative reference to the sun's progress 
across the sky), and that the last of these strides lands 
him in the '' highest place of Vishnu," the zenith, a kind 
of solar paradise, where the departed souls of the blessed 
are sometimes thought of as enjoying bliss with him. It 
has been conjectured that this feature may be connected 
with his later position as supreme god. 

But, although he increases in importance in the 
times of the Brahmanas and the later Vedic texts, he 
seems not to have become a popular deity of the fiirst 
rank until post- Vedic times. In fact, it appears that he 
gained this rank rather indirectly than directly. Certainly 
his hold on the popular consciousness seems to date from 
the time when he absorbed the cult of Krishna. 

At least as early as the second century b.c. we have 
definite proof that there was in existence a popular re- 
ligious cult centering about a sort of demi-god named 
Vasudeva or Krishna. Most scholars hold that this cult 
itself was composite; that there were to start with at 
least two, perhaps three, Krishnas. One of them at least 
was apparently a deified national hero of a local tribe. 
This whole matter is so complicated and obscure that it 
is quite impossible to discuss it now. In its final form, 
as it appears a few centuries after Christ, Krishnaism 
appears as a substantially monotheistic and highly devo- 
tional adoration of Vasudeva-Krishna, who is half 

173 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

shepherd and half warrior, but always truly man as well 
as truly God. In the Athanasian character of this wor- 
ship lies its great strength. In the famous Bhagavad 
Gita or Song of the Blessed One, an ancient Krishnaite 
tract imbedded in the great Hindu epic, the Mahabharata, 
we have the doctrine clearly set forth : " In order to save 
the righteous, to destroy the wicked, and to set religion 
on a firm footing, I come into being from age to age.''^^ 
God condescends to become man Himself, for the benefit 
of mankind. No Christian audience needs to be told how 
such a gospel can conquer the hearts of men. 

Now in some way or other, we cannot say exactly 
how or why, this Krishna or Vasudeva became identified 
with Vishnu. As the later theorists put it, the Supreme 
God, who is Vishnu, in his great love for man, made him- 
self man in the form of Krishna. But, as the stanza I 
just quoted indicates, this was not the only time when 
this loving deity became incarnate for a benevolent pur- 
pose. So presently we have the theory of the avataras, 
literally " descents," that is earthly incarnations, of 
Vishnu. This is perhaps the most characteristic feature 
of Vishnuism. At a time much later than the identifica- 
tion of Krishna with Vishnu, another popular human 
hero, Rama, was similarly made into an avatara of the 
same god, and so his cult, too, was received into Hindu- 
ism. The ancient myth of the fish who saved Manu, the 
Hindu Noah, from the world flood, was utilized in the 
same way ; the fish now becomes a recognized incarnation 
of Vishnu. And so other myths, old and new, became 
absorbed into the general cult of Vishnu by the same 
convenient method. To this day Vishnu is worshiped 
mostly in particular forms or incarnations. Each Vish- 
nuite sect devotes itself as a rule to one special avatara. 
The most popular ones are Krishna and Rama. There 
are usually said to have been nine such incarnations in 

"Bhagavad Gita 4.8, ^ ~' 

174 



BRAHMANISM AND HINDUISM 

all. There will some day be another, the idea of which is 
of great interest, because it gives a Messianic tinge to 
Vishnuism. The tenth and final incarnation of Vishnu 
will be in the form of Kalkin, or Kalki, a glorious Savior, 
who will appear and free India from barbarian rule, and 
finally establish his own true religion upon earth. The 
barbarians referred to were probably originally the Sakas 
or the Huns; later the Mohammedans were understood; 
and now it is the English who, in the hopes of many Vish- 
nuites of nationalistic tendencies, will be expelled by the 
Hindu Messiah, Kalkin. 

The spirit of sectarian Hinduism is essentially mono- 
theistic, although the forms it assumes sometimes seem to 
us curious. Most Hindus, at least practically all the 
more enlightened ones, believe that there is in reality but 
one God, though He is called by many names. To the 
Vishnuite his true or most perfect form is Vishnu — 
usually under the guise of Krishna or Rama. The Vish- 
nuite, however, neither denies the existence of (Jiva 
nor has any hostility to him as a rule. The essential 
tolerance of India shows itself most strikingly here. 
There are exceptions; instances have occurred of even 
bloody conflicts between opposing sectaries; but they 
are rare. Qiva may be thought of as another form of 
God, that is of Vishnu ; or he is represented as an emana- 
tion of Vishnu, and perhaps even as the first of his 
worshipers. (Jivaites, of course, think of Vishnu in simi- 
lar ways. A Hindu regards himself as belonging to one 
particular sect, the one into which he has been initiated 
by a guru or teacher, and whose mantra or sacred formula 
(usually kept secret) he has learned. It is the god of 
this sect whose name he will call upon in his hour of 
death, and through whom he hopes for final salvation. 
But during his lifetime he is apt to pay homage at many 
shrines of other gods. Already in the Bhagavad Gita, 
Krishna declares that any worship performed with sincere 

175 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

devotion will reach Him, even though not addressed to 
Him by name — a striking doctrine and one which must 
be constantly borne in mind by anyone who wishes really 
to understand Hinduism. 

The worship of the Hindu deities is generally simple 
and innocent. Flowers, food, and other simple offerings 
are deposited in the shrines, before the images of the 
gods. Even the bloody Kali is now most frequently wor- 
shiped, at least in North India, with offerings of animal 
figures made of dough or the like, instead of the former 
living victims. Wealthy devotees of course may give 
more expensive presents; and some noted shrines have 
thus become very rich. Some temples and holy places, 
which have acquired more than a local celebrity, are 
visited by pilgrims from far and wide; in some cases 
from all over India. Many rivers also are especially 
sacred, notably the Ganges, on which is located Benares, 
Qiva's favorite home. The shrines are tended by priests, 
who are sometimes men of low castes. The images or 
idols are theoretically supposed to be actually inhabited 
by the presence of the god, after a fixed ceremony of 
consecration has been performed, the adhivasa or " mak- 
ing (the god) to dwell in (the image)." To the more 
intellectual classes, however, the image is a mere con- 
ventional symbol, just as the saint's image or crucifix is 
to intelligent Greek and Roman Catholics. 

The intellectual basis of all the sects is the same, in 
so far as it concerns the three great postulates of all 
Indian systems, to which I referred in my chapter on 
Buddhism :^^ pessimism, transmigration (with karma), 
and salvation viewed as a release from the ceaseless evils 
of the round of existence. But when it comes to the 
means for obtaining this release, there are marked differ- 
ences. We saw that Buddhism recognizes three such 
means: personal devotion to the Founder (who takes 

" Page 140 ff. 

176 



BRAHMANISM AND HINDUISM 

the place of God to the Buddhists) ; intellectual cognition 
or realization of the religious truth he proclaims; and 
an ascetic or monastic life. It may be said that in this 
formula Buddhism includes all the ways to salvation 
known in India. But most Indian systems are not so 
catholic. 

For instance, there are some rigidly intellectual sys- 
tems, like Cankara's school of the Vedanta, or like the 
Sankhya, in which the intellectual factor is the only one. 
'* The truth shall make you free," they say ; and they 
interpret this in the strictest sort of intellectual sense. 
As soon as one attains to a genuine realization of the 
metaphysical truth which these systems claim to teach, 
he is thereby saved. And no amount of asceticism avails, 
nor yet of devotional fervor to any being (these systems 
have no God). These are commonly and rightly called 
systems of philosophy, rather than of religion. Yet since 
they profess to teach a scheme of salvation it seems hardly 
possible to deny to them the name of religion also. 

On this question the Vishnuite and Qivaite sects have 
a certain negative agreement among themselves, to this 
extent, that they do not regard this pure intellectualism, 
to which I have just alluded, as the highest or best way 
to salvation. 

The general position of Vishnuism is made clear once 
and for all in the Bhagavad Gita, which may fairly be 
called the Vishnuite Bible. In it Krishna speaks of the 
*' way of knowledge " as one road to the highest goal ; 
but he regards it as less desirable than the " way of 
works.*' He also refers to the argument used by Bud- 
dhism ^2 and other sects in favor of monasticism or 
asceticism, that participation in worldly life necessitates 
action prompted by desire, and so leads to the fruit 
thereof, continued existence in rebirth. Krishna's coun- 
ter-argument to this is, that one should live in the world 

"Page 149. 
12 i-j^ 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

performing such acts as are required by Duty (a sort of 
categorical imperative) without desire for or interest in 
the results of the action. Actions so performed, he says, 
do not lead to continued existence ; they have no binding 
effect, such as other actions, performed for interested 
motives, have. Above all, however, the Gita exalts 
bhakti, " devotion " to God, that is to Krishna- Vasudeva. 
The God of Vishnuism is neither an abstract principle 
nor a remote and purely heavenly being. He is not only 
philosophically immanent in the entire universe; more 
than that, he is a personal, tender-hearted lover of man- 
kind. He made himself man to save the world. And 
he is the direct and personal Savior of those who trust 
in him. He brings his devotees immediately to salva- 
tion. Accordingly, the chief refuge and hope of man 
should be warm, fervent, even ecstatic love for Him. 
This is what is meant by bhakti, which has been the main 
reliance of the Vishnuite sects in all ages. No wonder 
that it has suggested Christianity to many scholars. But 
it is now generally recognized that the concept of bhakti 
in India antedates the Christian era, so that it cannot have 
been derived from early Christian missionaries, as was 
once held by some. 

The idea of bhakti has played an important role in 
the later Qivaite sects, too. But on the whole the Qivaites 
have been rather more inclined to the practice of ascet- 
icism as a means to salvation. This is indeed more in 
keeping with the originally sterner and gloomier aspect of 
their god. 

III. SYNCRETIZING TENDENCIES 

If we restrict the term Brahmanism, as it seems to me 
best to do, to a system of ritual practices and social 
observances, then we may fairly say that Brahmanism 
has never fully satisfied the religious needs of any very 
considerable proportion of the Indian people. Brahman- 

178 



BRAHMANISM AND HINDUISM 

ism has survived, in fact, only by a constant course of 
compromise. Its strength has lain in its willingness to 
wink at and tolerate what it could not destroy. It has 
always been ready to yield the substance, if only it might 
keep the form. It has had to stoop to conquer. 

I have illustrated, rather than sketched, the history 
of sectarian influences threatening Brahmanism from be- 
low, from more popular cults. Quite as important have 
been the influences from above, from the intellectual and 
spiritual leaders of India, often members of the Brah- 
man caste itself. Since the days of the Upanishads, if 
not before, these leaders have been inclined to treat rather 
contemptuously the sterile cult of Brahmanism. There 
is certainly no place for a ritual of sacrifice in the mystical 
contemplation of the One Reality which constitutes the 
religion or philosophy of the Upanishads in their best 
moments. But Brahmanism is not perturbed. It promptly 
declares that the impersonal, neuter Brahman of the 
Upanishads, the unqualified, unknowable Absolute, is 
nothing but a personal, masculine god Brahma, whom 
the Brahmans have long since known under the name of 
Prajapati, the principal god of the later Vedic pantheon, 
-and under other similar names, all of which have in fact 
long since been philosophized as names for the Brahman. 

A little later came Buddhism and Jainism, which were 
openly heretical and refused to be compromised with. 
This attitude on their part nearly proved fatal to Brah- 
manism. But the cult of Krishna arose in the nick of 
time. Wholly non-Brahmanical, perhaps even anti-Brah- 
manical, in origin; a monotheistic, fervently devotional 
worship of a god who originally had no Brahmanical con- 
nections; Krishnaism nevertheless allowed itself to be 
reconciled to Brahmanism by the identification of Krishna 
with the ancient Vedic god Vishnu, who already had 
pretentions to rank as a name for the absolute Brahman. 
And thereafter the cult of Krishna- Vishnu proved a most 

179 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

effective weapon against Buddhism. Krishna, too, 
whether by this means or (more Hkely) even before his 
fusion with Vishnu, was philosophized as a personal 
manifestation of the metaphysical Absolute. The same 
treatment was accorded to Civa, who as the heir of the 
Vedic Rudra already had a position in the Brahmanical 
pantheon. 

The last step In this triple fusion of popular Hindu- 
ism, Brahmanism, and the higher philosophy, was the 
construction of the so-called Trimurti, the " Three- 
form,'' or the Hindu Trinit}^ This theory regards the 
three names, Brahma, Vishnu, and Civa, as three fonns 
of the One God, three aspects of the personalized Abso- 
lute, who is Brahma as Creator, Vishnu as Preserver, and 
Civa as Destroyer. Commonplace as this doctrine is in 
all the literature, it has never gained much foothold in 
popular behef. In spite of it, the great mass of Hindus 
are still either Vishnuites, who regard Brahma as born 
from a lotus on Vishnu's navel and Qiva as equally 
subordinate to Vishnu, or else Civaites, who likewise make 
Qiva supreme over the other two. Brahma has no sect, 
and almost no Independent worship. 

In spite of all this reconciliation, the forms of wor- 
ship of Brahmanism and Hinduism are kept absolutely 
distinct, even among those who more or less engage in 
both. The classical Brahmanical lawbooks forbid Brah- 
mans to act as priests in Hindu temples. This pre- 
scription is now only partly enforced; but at least in 
parts of India, such Brahmans as disregard it are de- 
spised by their brother-Brahmans. And a very large 
number of Brahmans affect a sort of mild and tolerant 
contempt for the sectarian worship, even though they 
may to some extent take part In It. 

The early identification of both Vishnu and Qiva with 
the philosophical Absolute, the Brahman, Is by no means 
the end of the story of the relations between the higher 

i8o 



BRAHMANISM AND HINDUISM 

thought of India and the sectarian cults. Especially the 
later Vedanta philosophy is intimately associated with 
various sects of Vishnuism, and also, in a less degree, 
with (Jivaite sects. As taught by the great Cankara, the 
Vedanta is a pure idealistic pantheism, or better, idealistic 
monism, with no place for a personal God at all, except 
as a part of what it calls Maya, the World-Illusion, to 
which all individual personality is assigned. But the 
Vishnuite teacher and sect-founder Ramanuja had a dif- 
ferent interpretation of the Vedanta, and of the Upani- 
shads on which it claims to rest. He taught what is 
called a '* qualified monism," in which God is real, and 
even individual souls have a partial reality as *' parts " 
of Him. Out of this school have sprung indirectly most 
of the modern sects of Vishnuism. Some of them even 
go so far as openly to renounce the monistic position and 
declare themselves dualists, believing in the independent 
reality of God, the world, and the individual soul. Some 
of these sects, even, still profess to follow the Vedanta 
system. Their doctrines, in point of fact, come much 
closer to those of the ancient Sankhya system, or rather 
of its offshoot, the Yoga. 

I have felt compelled to slight some important phases 
of my subject, and even to omit altogether some, which 
may perhaps be considered as important as certain of the 
phases to which I have referred. ^^ But the subject of 
modern Indian religions is so large and so desperately 
complicated that it is hard enough to unravel its historic 
aspects even with unlimited time. Those who are at all 

'' I might allude here by way of example to one of these neg- 
lected phases, viz., the cult of Radha, favorite of Krishna, who is 
quite extensively worshiped either alone or with her lover. The 
love of Krishna for her is sometimes allegorized as the passionate 
longing of the human soul seeking God. The famous Gita Govinda 
of Jayadeva is an exquisite lyric poem describing in passionately sen- 
suous and highly erotic terms the romance of Krishna and Radha. 
It has been beautifully rendered into English by Sir Edwin Arnold. 

i8i 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

familiar with the field will, I am sure, be lenient in their 
judgment of me. 

As for those to whom the subject is new, I will ask 
them in conclusion to carry away with them this final 
thought : 

Hinduism is a gigantic Proteus, the very essence of 
which is its innumerable forms. Yet there is somehow 
an underlying sense of unity in these forms^ — " if dimly, 
yet indeed revealed/' To state in words a generalization 
of Hinduism may be bold. Some may doubt whether 
there is any such thing. Yet I will venture on the follow- 
ing as an expression of what seems after all to come out 
of Hinduism — sometimes plainly stated, perhaps more 
often vaguely felt : 

You may call God by whatever name you will; but 
in truth God is One. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Barth-Wood (see page 134), Parts II and V. 

Hopkins (see page 134), Chapters ix-xi and xiv-xvii. 

M. MoNiER Williams: Brahmanism and Hinduism, 4th ed., New 
York, 1891. 

L. D. Barnett : Hinduism. London, 1906. Very brief summary. 

J. N. Farquhar I Primer of Hinduism. London, 1912. Compact and 
very useful. 

M. MoNiER Williams : Hinduism. London, 1906. 

N. Macnicol: Indian Theism. London, 191 5. 

J. B. Pratt: India and its Faiths. Boston and New York, 1915. Ad- 
mirable sketch of present-day conditions in historical aspects. 

R. G. Bhandarkar: Vaishnavism, Saivism, etc. Strassburg, 1913. 

W. Crooke: Religions [of India] ; in Imperial Gazetteer of India, 
2nd Edition, Vol. I, pages 402-445. Oxford, 1909. 

Translations : 
The bhagavad gita : 

1. Sir Edwin Arnold: The Song Celestial. Like all of Arnold's 

numerous translations from the Sanskrit, this cannot be too 
highly recommended for the success with which it reproduces 
the spirit of the original, and transfuses it into a most charming 
poetic English form. Those who want to enjoy the thought of 
the Gita, beautifully expressed in English, can find no better ren- 
dering. But it is not meticulously accurate. 

2. K T. Telang: The Bhagavad Gita, with Introduction. Oxford, 

1882. [Sacred Books of the East, vol. viii.] 

3. L. D. Barnett: The Bhagavad Gita, with introduction. ^ Lon- 

don, 1905. Perhaps the best scholarly translation in English. 

182 



CHAPTER VIII 

ZOROASTRIANISM. 
BY ROLAND G. KENT 

The modern traveler, coming from the lands of 
western civilization and setting foot for the first time in 
India, the land of many religions, finds himself in a maze 
of brilliant color, far surpassing that which he may have 
seen in the Nearer East. Through this kaleidoscopic 
panorama move the dignified white-robed figures of the 
Parsis, the so-called '' Fire-worshipers." Should the 
Occidental traveler make inquiries concerning them, he 
would find that they are held in the highest esteem for 
their generosity toward all philanthropic movements ; they 
are famed for their liberality toward relief funds of all 
kinds, for their assistance to hospitals, for their patron- 
age of education, even of education for the female sex — 
a cause which can hardly be expected to have progressed 
very rapidly in the Orient. By occupation they are mostly 
merchants, though they are well known also as ship- 
builders; in the latter capacity they provide the means 
for their carrying on of commerce. In number they are 
about one hundred thousand; but this is only one-thir- 
tieth of one per cent, of the teeming millions forming 
the population of British India and Burma, and the 
prominence of this tiny fraction of Parsis is a testimony 
to their industry and capabilities, justifying us in giving 
to them, the followers of Zoroaster, a place in the list 
of the great religions that is denied to other faiths whose 
followers are many times as numerous ; for example, the 
Sikhs and the Jains, of India, and the Mormons, of the 
Western United States. 

There are three conspicuous features of Parsi re- 

183 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

ligion, as it impresses the superficial observer to-day: 
fire-worship, a thorough-going duahty of good and bad, 
and the disposal of the dead. But the Parsi himself 
indignantly denies that he worships the fire : the Sacred 
Fire is only the symbol of the supreme god, Ahura Maz- 
dah (Ormuzd), and is not worshiped nor revered ex- 
cept in that capacity — somewhat as the Cross of Chris- 
tianity is not in itself the object of worship. Yet both 
among Parsis and among Christians there is the danger 
that the symbol may be taken for the reafity; and with 
the less educated or less thoughtful of the Parsis there 
can be no doubt that there is in truth a worship of the 
Fire, rather than of the Supreme God represented by it. 
The places of worship of the Parsis are known as Fire- 
Temples, since it is there that the Sacred Fire is kept 
and the ritual is performed; but there is no congrega- 
tional worship, and the ritual is performed privately in 
the temple by the priests. These priests must be sons 
of priests, though sons of priests may choose other call- 
ings; and as the livehhood of the priest is a scanty one, 
compared with that of the Parsi in the business world, 
the more able and energetic of the sons of priests are 
likely to follow secular callings, so that the priests are 
rather drawn from the indolent and Incompetent. They 
must memorize the sacred writings, known as the Avesta, 
for purposes of recitation in the ritual; and since this is 
in a tongue now long extinct as a spoken language, and 
decipherable by scholars only with difficulty and doubt, 
the priests are many of them in entire ignorance of the 
meaning of those passages which they recite, though of 
recent years there has been a movement for the better 
instruction of candidates for the priesthood. In these 
temples, the Sacred Fire Is maintained by the priests 
and never allowed to go out; It is fed with holy fuel, 
including sandalwood, which burns with a fragrance. 
The most notable ceremony Is that connected with the 

184 



ZOROASTRIANISM 

preparation and drinking ot the Haoma-jmce {honv- 
juice), which is in origin and in etymology the same as 
the Soma of the Veda. 

The duaHty of the theology of the Parsis may be 
explained briefly: the entire universe is composed of 
good and bad creations; whenever the Good Spirit cre- 
ated any thing or creature, the Evil Spirit, Angra Manyu 
(Ahriman) created its evil counterpart. The develop- 
ment of the world is then a battle between the good and 
the bad, which is to eventuate in the final victory of the 
good and the subjection of the Evil Spirit. Here, again, 
the modern Parsi objects to this interpretation of his 
faith, saying that the Evil Spirit is not coordinate with 
the Good Spirit, but is distinctly inferior at all times. 
That, however, the modern believer is attempting to bring 
a strict monotheism into a religion which was by its 
founder endowed with this very dualism, will appear later, 
when we consider the testimony of that founder, Zoro- 
aster, from his own words. 

To the Parsi, earth, fire, and water are all possessed 
of holiness which must not suffer pollution; therefore 
dead bodies may not be buried, nor burned, nor allowed 
to rest in the waters where the living person may have 
met with death, accidental or otherwise. For the dis- 
posal of the dead, without rendering unclean these ele- 
ments (holy because they are creations of the Good 
Spirit), they have constructed the so-called Towers of 
Silence, great round structures open to the sky, with a 
metal grating at some distance from the earth. Into 
these they carry the dead body, and place it on the 
gratings ; within a few minutes the vultures swoop down 
and strip the flesh from the corpse, while the bones fall 
through the grating and an ingenious arrangement pre- 
vents the ritual contamination of the earth beneath. Hor- 
rible as this seems to us, it is a matter of pride to the 
Parsi that it is sanitary, for he claims — and I have no 

185 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

facts with which to contest his claim— that no contagious 
disease has ever spread among the Parsis, nor has this 
disposal of the dead ever spread contagion to others, 
though India is ever the home of plague and epidemic. 
But, if we may again anticipate, Zoroaster himself did 
not contemplate this mode of disposal of the dead, but 
burial, the holy Earth lending indestructibility until the 
Day of the Last Judgment. 

But let us turn now and take a survey of the tra- 
ditional history of this religion, as recounted by its own 
followers, from its inception to the present day, before 
we attempt to glean from the oldest portions of theAvesta, 
the Parsi Bible, the doctrines and practices which Zoro- 
aster himself sought to propagate. 

Sketch of the History of the Religion 
At a very early date, somewhere in Persia, and prob- 
ably in the northwest, Zoroaster was born; the tradition 
sets this as late as 660 B.C. His birth was heralded by 
marvelous happenings, and for some years the powers 
of Evil sought to destroy him, but his life was on every 
occasion miraculously preserved. Seeing that the child 
was marked for a great future, his father placed him 
under the care of a wise teacher. To the Persian, fifteen 
is the ideal age for attaining to manhood; at this age 
Zoroaster retired from the world for solitary meditation 
and preparation for his great calling. When he was 
thirty years of age, he received the revelation, and within 
a short time had his seven visions, the first a conference 
with Ahuramazda himself, the succeeding ones with the 
six archangels successively: Vohit Manah or Good 
Thought, Asha Vahishfa or Best Righteousness, Khsha- 
fhra Varya or Desirable Sovereignty, Spenta Armati or 
Holy Devotion, Harvafat or Welfare, and Amrtat or 
Immortality. In obedience to the instructions received 
in these visions- and by virtue of the powers which he 

m 



ZOROASTRIANISM 

had therein received, Zoroaster set out to preach the true 
rehgion. But it was a slow and discouraging mission; 
at the end of ten 3^ears he won his first convert, his own 
cousin. Two years later he secured a hearing before the 
Kavi or Lord Vishtaspa, King of Balkh in northeastern 
Persia, where he contests with the wise men of the 
court and comes off victor; but a conspiracy lands him 
in prison, from which he escapes only by the offer to 
restore from a mysterious illness the favorite black horse 
of the king. This done, Vishtaspa is converted, and 
with him his family and his court. The critical moment 
of the Zoroastrian faith had been successfully passed. 

With the support of the royal circle at Balkh, the 
faith entered into the missionary stage. There are 
echoes of conversions among the Turanians of the north, 
among the Hindus and among the Greeks ; we even hear 
that the sacred writings of Zoroaster were translated 
into a Greek version. Whether the Prophet himself 
went on these missions we may doubt ; his time he may 
rather have spent in organizing the religion and in estab- 
lishing the ritual at home, where he was Chief Priest in 
charge of the Sacred Fire. But the propagation of the 
faith led to enmities, and war came on with Arjath-aspa, 
King of the Hyaonians, a Turanian people. The first 
war ends in the rout of the Turanians, but in the second 
war, before the final victory of the true believers, Balkh 
was taken, and the aged Zoroaster slain as he stood by 
the Sacred Fire in ministration. Zoroaster was seventy- 
seven years of age at his death, which the traditional 
chronology makes 583 B.C. 

The death of the Prophet did not Interfere with the 
onward career of the faith which he had proclaimed; a 
series of high-prlests followed him, down to the time of 
the invasion of the Macedonian Alexander, The sacred 
writings of Zoroaster, known as the Avesta, were of 
great extent, and were reputed to have contained over two 

187 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

million verses; they were written in golden letters on 
^twelve thousand cowhides, tied together with golden 
bands. This precious archetype of the Avesta was de- 
stroyed by Alexander when he burned the palace at Per- 
sepolis; and it was only fragments and portions preserved 
by the memories of the priests, which escaped and were 
later gathered together, The Zoroastrian faith persisted 
through the time of the semi-Greek dynasties, and seems 
to have been again the state religion under the Parthian 
kingdom, one of whose rulers appears to have attempted 
to gather together the more or less scattered holy writ- 
ings; this was in the first century a.d. But the coming 
in of the Sassanian kings brought about a new golden 
age for the faith; the first ruler of this line, Ardashir 
Babagan (226-240) directed his chief priest to collect 
the scattered portions of the Avesta and to compile a 
new Avesta, as nearly like the original as was possible. 
Shapur II (309-380) had it brought into complete or- 
der, and gave it the definitive form which it now has. 
The overthrow of the Sassanians and the subjection of 
Persia in 652 by the Mohammedan invaders ended this 
period of prosperity, and the Zoroastrian was forced to 
accept the beliefs of his conqueror or to be treated as an 
outlaw. Some few have indeed survived centuries of 
oppression and persecution in their native land, though 
even to-day they dread to have their neighbors know 
their religious faith. They number perhaps ten thousand. 
But to-day the greater portion of the Zoroastrians 
make their home in India. A certain number of those 
who shunned forced conversion to Islam, made their way 
presently to the island of Ormuz at the mouth of the 
Persian Gulf, where they remained for fifteen years; 
then they resolved to go on farther, to India, and voy- 
aged to the island of Diu, where they remained for nine- 
teen years, during which they learned to speak Gujerati, 
the language of the country. They then set sail again, 

i88 



ZOROASTRIANISM 

for reasons not definitely known. On the voyage they 
were caught by a terrific storm, and they seemed destined 
to perish; but in response to a devout prayer, the text 
of which has come down to us, the storm abated, and 
they arrived in safety at Sanjan, on the coast of Gujerat. 
The newcomers sent a venerable priest to the chief of 
the district, to ask permission to land and make a settle- 
ment, but though he detailed the sufferings and hard- 
ships which had driven them thither, the local chief, 
observing the hardy appearance of the refugees, feared 
for his throne, and asked the priest to make a statement 
of the tenets of their faith. This he did, cleverly select- 
ing those features which harmonized most closely with 
Hindu practices; and the desired pennission was then 
given, on condition that they should adopt the language 
of the country, giving up their own; should wear no 
armor; should dress their women in the Hindu fashion, 
and should perform marriage ceremonies at night The 
conditions were accepted. The Parsis, as they were now 
called, a word which means nothing more nor less than 
Persians, prospered in their new surroundings for several 
centuries, until the approach of Mohammedan forces 
soon after 1300 released them from their promise not 
to wear armor, for they enrolled themselves under the 
chief of Sanjan and won a great victory for him, though 
this was avenged speedily by the Mohammedans, and the 
Parsis became refugees in the mountains. From that time 
there were various persecutions of the Parsis, wherever 
they settled, mostly at the hands of the Mohammedans, 
but sometimes from the Hindu rulers. 

A new period of prosperity bloomed for them in 
Bombay, to which some Parsi merchants emigrated from 
Surat in the seventeenth century, probably not long before 
the Portuguese ceded that region to the English, in 1668. 
Since that time, Bombay has been the chief Parsi center; 
here they have flourished, have built their temples and 

189 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

their tower of silence, have spread out as merchants 
through the East, and have been prominent in works of 
charity, pubHc spirit, and education. They have not 
forgotten their coreHgionists in Persia, whose condition 
they have notably ameliorated. In essentials they have 
remained faithful to the principles of their religion, though 
changed circumstances must always bring changes in 
practice. 

The Zoroastrian Literature 

The sacred books of the Parsis are known as the 
Avesta, or, more commonly but wrongly, as the Zend- 
avesta. In its present form it is composed of five parts : 
the Yasna contains the Gathas or metrical hymns of Zoro- 
aster himself, of varying content, giving the main tenets 
of the religion in the form in which it was promulgated 
by its founder; the remainder is composed mainly of 
various invocations used in the ritual. The Vispered con- 
tains additional material used in the liturgy. The third 
portion, the Vendidad, is the priestly code, with detailed 
injunction as to what the faithful should do and should 
avoid doing, and the penalties for transgression; it gives 
also an interesting account of the creation, the golden age, 
and the first destructive winter. The Vendidad also is 
used in the liturgy, and like the Yasna and the Vispered 
belongs to the priests only. The Yashts are songs of 
praise, with invocations of separate angels of the religion, 
and the best of them may be considered to represent the 
old religious poetry of the Iranians. The Khordah Avesta 
or Little Avesta is a collection of shorter prayers and the 
like, destined for the use of laity as well as of the clergy. 

But these five books are only a tiny portion of the 
original Avesta, which, we are told, contained two mil- 
lion verses. The destruction by Alexander, if historical, 
of the great official copy, and the eclipse of the religion 
until the Sassanian revival, some half-dozen centuries 

190 



ZOROASTRIANISM 

later, are responsible for the loss of the greatest portion 
of the original text. Even much of the canon which was 
compiled by the Sassanians, was lost in the Mohammedan 
persecutions; yet what to-day survives makes in trans- 
lation a volume of about five hundred large pages. 

The Persian language spoken in Sassanian times is 
known as Pahlavi, and is quite different from the earlier 
language. Consequently, a translation of the Avesta was 
made into Pahlavi, since the orginal speech was quite 
unintelligible except to those priests to whom the tra- 
ditional meaning had been handed down by word of 
mouth, and this translation into Pahlavi was known as the 
Zand or Zend. From this came the common but errone- 
ous term Zendavesta — an inversion of Avesta and Zend, 
the Avesta and Pahlavi translation. There was written 
also a Pahlavi Commentary, known as the Pazand; and 
there was a whole series of other writings in Pahlavi, 
on topics relating to the religion. 

The study of the Avesta in the Occidental world 
begins soon after the middle of the eighteenth centur3^ 
A few texts of portions had been brought to Europe, 
but they were utterly unintelligible, as even the alphabet 
was unknown. Some tracings made from a manuscript 
at Oxford were sent to Paris as a specimen, and there, 
in 1 754, were seen by a young Frenchman named Anque- 
til du Perron. They fired him with an unquenchable 
desire to solve their mysteries, and in an effort to reach 
the Orient he enlisted as a soldier in troops going to 
India; but his object becoming known, the French gov- 
ernment presented him with his discharge and a free 
passage to India. There, at Surat, he succeeded in over- 
coming the distrust of the Parsi priests, and after he had 
learned Persian, he was instructed in the Avesta and in 
their ceremonies, and was presented with some of their 
manuscripts. After seven years in India, Anquetil re- 
turned to France, and in 1771, after ten years more of 

191 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

study, he issued in three volumes the first edition of the 
Avesta, with translation and commentary. 

But pioneer work in any field leads to errors. The 
traditional knowledge of the priests was sadly corrupted 
by the lapse of time, and the zealous Frenchman was 
greatly handicapped by having to learn one strange lan- 
guage, Avestan, through the medium of another strange 
language, Persian, which he understood but imperfectly. 
Anquetil, also, was not a trained scholar. The Avesta, 
further, has a great amount of tiresome and futile repe- 
titions. As a result, the subject matter presented by this 
first edition was in part so obscure, in part so lacking in 
high philosophical and religious ideas, that English and 
German scholars mostly attacked it as a forgery, if not 
of AnquetiFs own making, then foisted upon him by the 
Parsi priests. But the authenticity of the work was ac- 
cepted in France from the very first, and in 1825, when 
Sanskrit studies had progressed, Sanskritists began to 
examine the Avesta, and they observed that there was 
a close kinship of the two languages. With this began 
the real interpretation of the Avesta. Since then, a 
fairly numerous company of scholars, one of the most 
eminent of whom, I am happy to say, is an American, 
Professor A. V. W. Jackson of Columbia University, 
have devoted themselves to the study of the Avesta ; and 
while there is of course much divergence in detail, the 
variations are not often of fundamental importance for 
our conclusions. We must remember that the traditional 
teachings of the Parsi priests must not be taken at their 
face value, though they must always receive due con- 
sideration; the tradition has suffered much in the cen- 
turies of persecution. But we have the help of the Pah- 
lavi translation and commentary which have been men- 
tioned (though these are often more difficult to interpret 
than the Avesta itself) : there are translations of the 
Avesta into modern Persian and into Sanskrit — both of 

ig3 



ZOROASTRIANISM 

course depending upon the more or less faulty under- 
standing of the Avesta by the priests at the time of 
the making of the translations. The great aid to inter- 
pretation is that which is brought by comparative phi- 
lology, with its scientific methods of etymologizing, and 
this is the corrective to the errors in the tradition. What 
may be said as to the original doctrines of the Zoroastrian 
faith in the remaining portion of this lecture should be 
understood as based on the study of the Avesta in the 
light of these various means of interpretation, by which 
scholars may arrive at reasonably accurate conclusions. 

I have earlier stated that certain practices of the 
Parsis of to-day, such as the manner of disposal of the 
dead, cannot be traced back to Zoroaster himself. For 
the actual teachings of the prophet, we should restrict 
ourselves to those portions of the Avesta which may be 
regarded as his very words, the chapters of the Yasna 
which are known as the Gathas, and are distinguished 
from the other writings by style, language, and form. 
What, therefore, is next to be said, concerning the original 
nature of Zoroastrianism, will be limited to what we can 
find in the Gathas. 

The Theology. 
The religion of Zoroaster has a supreme God, later 
known as Ahuramazda, or Ormuzd. But while both 
Ahura and Mazdah are used in the Gathas as names of 
the God, neither name is definitely and exclusively ap- 
plied in this way. The word Ahura is still at times a 
common noun meaning Lord, referring sometimes to an 
earthly prince, though usually to the God ; Mazdah, which 
means either Wisdom or The Wise One, is in one passage 
coupled with another noun, so that the God is addressed 
as " Mazdah and King," showing that the name is not 
yet specialized as a peculiar personal name of the Deity. 
Still less is the combination Ahuramazda a fixed ex- 
13 193 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

pression in the Gathas. In three- fourths of the stanzas 
where both Ahura and Masdah occur, the two words are 
separated by intervening words; when they occur to- 
gether the order is always Mazdah Ahura, never Ahura- 
mazda as in the later writings of the religion, unless a 
metrical pause intervenes. Both portions of the combina- 
tion receive separate case endings, and the group is a 
phrase, not a compound. Further, the plural of Mazdah 
Ahura is used apparently to denote the Deity and the 
chief archangels, of whom something will be said later. 
And the name Mazdah alone is used very frequently, 
while Ahura alone is used occasionally to denote the Deity. 
From this lack of specialization in the name, we may 
conclude that the employment of these names in this mean- 
ing originated with the Prophet Zoroaster himself. Ahura 
is, of course, an old word, used in application to a deity 
of more than human power ; but there is no such meaning 
for Mazdah until it was applied to the God by the Prophet. 
In the use of this word, we see the work of Zoroaster 
himself. 

Mazdah, to give him the original name, was the cre- 
ator of the Universe : of the sun, the moon and the stars, 
the earth, the sky, the waters, the plants, the winds and 
the clouds; of man; of the cattle; of morning, noon and 
night; of light and darkness; sleeping and waking; of 
wisdom; of the obedience of son to father, and of all 
things. He is primeval and eternal, ever one and the 
same, all powerful and all-knowing; he sees afar, and 
cannot be deceived. He knows the past and the future; 
he is just, assigning rewards and punishment to men 
after death in accord with their deserts; but he is merciful 
to the good and stern to the evil. In his mercy, he made 
Zoroaster his prophet and sent him to teach men how 
they might attain to the good reward in the next world. 

But Mazdah, though omnipotent, has an enemy, whom 
he is apparently unable to overcome without the help of 

194 



ZOROASTRIANISM 

righteous men. For in the beginning of all things, Zoro- 
aster tells us (Yasna 30:3-4), there were two primal 
Spirits, the Good and the Bad, good and bad respectively 
in thought and word and deed. They were twins; and 
the holier of the twain said to the other, his destined 
enemy, " Neither the thoughts nor the teachings nor the 
wisdoms nor the beliefs nor the words nor the deeds 
nor the selves nor the souls of us two agree." So began 
the conflict of good and evil : the Good Spirit created Life, 
and the Evil Spirit countered by creating Non-Life. Thus 
all the world is made up of two opposing forces and crea- 
tions, the good created by the Good Spirit and the evil 
created by the Evil Spirit. 

It seems almost inevitable to identify the Good Spirit 
of this story with Mazdah himself, and to conclude that 
there is a duality in the Zoroastrian religion, under 
which the Evil Spirit hampers the supremacy of Mazdah. 
Such is the impression given to the unphilosophic mind, 
at least. It is true that the Evil Spirit is to be overcome 
at the Last Judgment, but in the meantime he is an inde- 
pendent power, at times reducing the prophet quite to 
despair by the activity and successes of his followers. 
There is in this situation the difficult problem how the 
presence of victorious evil — though the victory may be 
only for the present — is reconcilable with belief in an all- 
powerful God of mercy and goodness; and Zoroaster's 
solution is perhaps a presentation of the problem rather 
than a solution. The most successful interpretation that 
has been suggested to remove the difficulty is that which 
makes Mazdah the Deity in his universal aspect, creator 
of everything; as soon as the good is created, that im- 
plies the creation of its evil counterpart ; the Good Spirit 
is therefore the aspect of Mazdah in which he created 
what is good, and the Evil Spirit follows as a corollary 
to complete the picture, being an aspect of Mazdah neces- 
sarily implied by his creation of the good. Yet the making 

195 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

of the Evil Spirit a part of the great and beneficent 
Deity is hardly one that appeals to our minds, and while 
the logic may be valid, such a doctrine repels rather than 
attracts. 

The Evil Spirit is known in the Gathas as the Druj, 
the Lie or (perhaps better) Deceit. He is always the 
enemy of the good, seeking to destroy it and its followers ; 
his decisions, his thoughts, words and deeds are evil, and 
his home is in the place of punishment, as that of Mazdah 
is in Paradise. All these qualities will appear more clearly 
when we come to the character of the followers of the 
Evil Spirit. 

Now about Mazdah, in later times, there were ranged 
certain archangels known as Amshaspands (amesha 
spentas) or Immortal Holy Ones. All of these appear 
in the Gathas, but they are not all distinctly persons in 
those texts. So far as they are personified, they are 
personifications of the attributes of Mazdah himself ; but 
they constantly appear also as attributes of the follower 
of Mazdah. Let us take them up one by one. 

Asha is the personification of right-doing; at times the 
word is distinctly not a person, but means merely the 
good deeds or the righteousness of the man in question. 
At other times, Asha is so personified as to be celebrated 
with prayer and with offering, invoked, praised and 
worshiped. It is through Asha that Mazdah makes his 
revelation to Zoroaster, and instructs him in the principles 
of the religion which he is to proclaim on earth; Asha 
is the creation, even the child, of Mazdah; Asha is of 
one will with Mazdah; Asha gives help to man against 
the Evil Spirit and his followers, helps the righteous to 
attain to blessings, both temporal and spiritual; Asha is 
Mazdah's chief assistant at the Last Judgment. By an 
easy transfer, Asha at times is used as a synonym of Para- 
dise ; once at least, the name has the meaning of its etymo- 
logical equivalent in Sanskrit, rita, namely, cosmic order. 

196 



ZOROASTRIANISM 

Vohu Manah or Good Thought, is the personification 
of right thinking. At times the term means merely the 
good thought of the believers; sometimes it denotes the 
good thinkers or believers, as a body; at other times, 
Good Thought, or the abode, the dominion, or the bless- 
ings of Good Thought, and is a mere equivalent for 
Paradise. As a person, however. Good Thought runs 
through almost the same range of function as Asha, 
with a somewhat less active participation in them. Maz- 
dah, Asha, and Good Thought are a triad so constantly 
mentioned within the limits of a single stanza, that they 
form almost a Trinity. 

The other Amshaspands are much less frequently men- 
tioned. Devotion, or Armati, is the daughter of Mazdah, 
pleads with the wavering spirit, blesses man in this life 
and in the next ; but again there is little in these functions 
to differentiate this archangel from the preceding two. 
The name is applied now to the Devotion of the indi- 
vidual, now to the personification of that quality ; and in 
one passage Silent Thinking (ttishnamati) seems to be 
used as a synonym. 

The next three are much less definitely personified. 
Sovereignty or Dominion (Khshathra) means in most 
instances rulership on earth, either good or bad; but it 
denotes also the sway of the religion of Mazdah, and 
Paradise. Its activity is of a most vague nature. The 
fifth and sixth of the list are Welfare (Harvatat) and 
Immortality (Amrtat), and are in the Gathas hardly per- 
sonified at all, except in one passage, where they are sup- 
plicated to confer themselves as blessings. 

To these six, which are in fact somewhat singled out 
in the Gathas (though the last two much less distinctly 
so), there was added, when the later list of seven Amsha- 
spands was made up, the figure of Obedience (Sraosha), 
which appears in these early texts as a partly personified 
representation of the act of obeying Mazdah, and in one 

197 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

passage as an Angel of Judgment. The germs of the 
later doctrines that Asha was in special charge of the 
Fire (sacred and profane alike), Good Thought in charge 
of cattle and other useful animals, and Armati of the 
earth, may be found in the Gathas, but they have no 
prominence; the provinces of the other Amshaspands, 
metals as belonging to Sovereignty, water to Welfare, 
and plants to Immortality, are not hinted at in the Gathas. 

That the personifications are still but half -complete 
is seen in many stanzas, as in the following, where Good 
Thought is but the thinking of the righteous, and Piety 
is coordinated with worship and zeal, while Sovereignty 
is but an attribute of Mazdah (Yasna 49: 10) : "And 
this, O Mazdah, I will bring to thy house for shelter : the 
Good Thought and the souls of the righteous, their wor- 
ship, their Piety and their zeal, O thou of mighty Sov- 
ereignty, that thou mayest watch over them with abiding 
power." 

But again study shows that there is not in the Gathas 
a closed band of seven Amshaspands, to which no others 
might be added ; for the following stanza ( Yasna 45 : 10) 
not only names all of them except Obedience, some rather 
thinly personified, but uses the terms Strength {tevishi) 
and Permanence (utayuti) in a manner quite parallel to 
Welfare and Immortality: 

" For us thou (= the believer in the true religion) shalt 
exalt with prayers of Devotion him who is enduringly 
famed as Mazdah Ahura ; for through his Righteousness 
(Asha) and Good Thought he has taught that in his 
Sovereignty Welfare and Immortality shall be ours, and 
in his house Strength and Permanence shall be ours." 

We may observe that here, also, only Asha and Good 
Thought, besides Mazdah, are persons, and that a different 
translation is possible, by which even they are but ab- 
stracts : " For he has for himself taught that for Right- 
doing and for Good Thinking, Welfare and Immortality 

198 



^OROASTRIANISM 

shall be ours in his Sovereignty (= paradise) ..." More 
than that, the word which is rendered '* enduringly '* is 
only an oblique case form of a word (anman) which in 
another passage is coupled with Permanence in precisely 
the manner in which we here have " Strength and Per- 
manence.'* Similarly, oblique cases of the words for Per- 
manence and Immortality are used as adverbs, once in 
close combination; and in another pasasge, Immortality 
(as an abstract) and Happy Life (hujyatl) are combined 
in the same way as the usual " Welfare and Immortality." 
Other concepts which might have been promoted to the 
dignity of archangels, but were not, are to be found in 
A tar, the Fire on the altar, and Ashi, the Lot assigned 
after death as reward for the deserts of life: these last 
two did, however, become in later times angels of a grade 
inferior to the Amshaspands. 

Now over against Mazdah and the seven Amsha- 
spands we find in the later writings of the Avesta a set 
of seven arch-demons attending the Evil Spirit ; but only 
two or three of these appear in the Gathas, and they are 
not strongly personified. Evil Thought (Aka Manah) 
is the special opponent of Good Thought, and represents 
the ideas which may be deduced from the name. Violence 
(aeshina) denotes the violence which the nomadic raiders 
from the north exercised upon the herdsmen of Persia, 
and in especial the cruelty towards the herds of cattle, 
which they slaughtered or drove off as booty ; Violence is 
the particular opponent of Obedience. Heresy (taro- 
mati) is named once, and is at a later time spoken of as 
the opponent of Devotion, though Devotion's special 
enemy is regularly Ndonghathya (etymologically identical 
with Sanskrit Nasafya) ; but the two are perhaps to be 
identified. Other ideas in the Gathas which might have 
been advanced to the position of arch-demons are Arro- 
gance (parimati), which later became a minor demon, 
and Disobedience {asru^hti), which is given in a list with 

199 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

the Druj, Evil Thought, and Heresy, but receives no 
additional prominence in later times. 

To turn now from the supernatural hosts, Man was 
created by Mazdah as an independent agent, endowed 
with free will, and with the power and also the obliga- 
tion of making a choice between the two spirits, the good 
and the evil. He should hear gladly the preaching of 
Zoroaster in his effort to lead him to the right way, and 
on having made the right choice is designated as wise, 
possessed of understanding and of insight, worthy, faith- 
ful He will practice good thoughts, good words, and 
good deeds; he will please Mazdah by dutiful actions, 
will uphold Righteousness, cherish Devotion, cling to the 
hope of everlasting blessedness in paradise. He will 
offer worship to Mazdah with prayers of praise and of 
entreaty, and with sacrifice. He will avoid committing 
the sins which the followers of the Druj or Evil Spirit 
practice; he will even shun all fellowship with them, 
and work ill to them, smiting them with the weapon and 
overcoming them, never seeking tO' propitiate them be- 
cause of some temporary exigency, for the triumph of the 
righteous man is assured even on earth, in this life, in 
addition to the reward of blessedness after death. In 
only one relation may he have dealings with the followers 
of the Druj, and that is in an effort to convert them to 
the true faith; in such missionary work he should be 
zealous, and then he should be resolute in protecting the 
new converts from the resentment of the infidels. Tem- 
poral prosperity, as well as spiritual, shall be the posses- 
sion of the faithful believer, though there are times of 
trial and depression, as Zoroaster well knew himself. 

The follower of the Druj is the direct opposite of the 
Believer, in character and in actions ; he is the seed of the 
Lie, Evil Thought and Arrogance; he chooses wrong, for 
he hates the words of Zoroaster ; he opposes the blessings 
of Mazdah, and scorns devotion ; when in power, he exer- 

300 



1\ 



ZOROASTRIANISM 

cises evil rule, bringing misery and destruction to the 
house, the clan, the district and the land ; he uses violence, 
seeking to slay Zoroaster and the true believers, but shall 
himself be smitten down in this world, and at the Last 
Judgment be condemned to everlasting punishment. 
There are teachers of the Evil Spirit, who destroy the 
teachings of Zoroaster, and the designs of life established 
by Mazdah, and cause Good Thinking to be held in low 
repute; and the warfare against them is continually 
waged by Zoroaster in his missionary work. The posi- 
tive doctrines of the Z^rw;- followers we shall take up 
presently. 

Before considering the teleology of the Zoroastrian 
religion, we may first observe that there is no provision 
for the exposure of the dead body to the beasts and birds, 
which seems to be a later engrafting on the faith. For 
Zoroaster says ( Yasna 30 : 7 ; I paraphrase slightly, to 
secure clearness) : " And to man Sovereignty came, and 
Good Thought and Asha (Right) ; and Devotion gave 
to his body permanence and duration, that at the Last 
Judgment he may be first of all." In this we have an 
allusion to persistence of the physical body after death 
until the day of judgment, which is quite incompatible 
with the later practice; and as the archangel Devotion, 
who confers permanence upon the body, is that archangel 
in special charge of the earth, we must infer that the 
original Zoroastrian practice was that of burial, and that 
therefore the doctrine of pollution by contact with dead 
bodies was not taught by Zoroaster ; or else that the earth 
was Immune to such contamination by the contact — unless 
indeed the holiness of earth Is a later development In 
the religion. 

But after death the souls of the dead pass on to the 
place of the great judgment, when Mazdah, attended by 
Asha, Good Thought, and Sovereignty, are waiting to 
pronounce the sentence of bliss or torment. Here Is the 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

treasure-house in which all the good thoughts, words, and 
deeds — for this triad is constantly insisted on — ^have been 
stored up against this day; we must assume that the evil 
also has been stored up, for the two are placed in a 
balance, and that which is heavier decides the fate of 
the soul. Yet if there is a perfect balance between the 
two, the soul goes to a third place, neither heaven nor 
hell, reserved for those whose perfect equality of good 
and bad in this earthly life puts them in a position of 
neutrality in the contest of right and wrong. At this 
weighing, Zoroaster is present as the advocate of the 
faithful, that none of their merits may be forgotten; some 
passages seem even to place him in the position of the 
Judge, instead of Mazdah. Then the Judge, with a point- 
ing of the hand, indicates the destiny of the soul. Next 
comes the crossing of the Bridge of the Separator: the 
righteous find it easy to traverse, and arrive on the other 
side at Paradise; but the evil find it growing narrower 
and narrower, until at last they fall off into hell below, 
where they are to subsist upon evil food, and to undergo 
everlasting torment. 

It cannot be too strongly insisted upon that the in- 
evitability of the reward for good and bad is a dominant 
feature of Zoroaster's teaching ; it appears throughout the 
Gathas. The awful punishment of the bad is kept con- 
tinually before the mind of his auditor, that terror may 
be one influence toward conversion ; yet there are also for 
the believer the promises of blessedness in the next life, 
and of prosperity on earth, as well as the desirability of 
doing right deeds for their own sake. Further, though 
there is this personal judgment on the individual after 
death, there is a constant looking forward to the day 
when the world will be cleansed of sin ; this will accom- ^ 
plish the final defeat and subjection of the Evil Spirit, 
when he no longer has followers. At this time, all souls 
will pass through a flood of molten metal, which will 

202 



ZOROASTRIANISM 

seem a bath of pleasant warmth to the righteous, but will 
either destroy or purge of evil the souls of the wicked: 
Zoroaster does not make the point clear. Thus the re- 
generation of the world should come ; and to this process 
Zoroaster termed himself a Saoshyant, or future deliverer, 
almost Saviour, and he bestowed this title on those who 
were already or should later become active in the process. 
In fact, the prophet expected this millennium to come 
soon, even in his lifetime; but when such did not take 
place, later Zoroastrianism interpreted these deliverers, 
of whom Zoroaster spoke, as miraculously born sons of 
the Prophet, the last of whom will bring about the 
regeneration. 

Now what are the good deeds which are enjoined 
upon the faithful follower of Mazdah, according to the 
preaching of his prophet? They are the care and the 
protection of the herds of cattle : in other words, Zoro- 
aster preached a religion for a community of herdsmen, 
whose prosperity depended upon the welfare of the herds. 
Later Avestan writings include with cattle-tending the 
culture of the fields, and enjoin upon the faithful works 
of irrigation and the slaying of noxious beasts — crea- 
tions of the Evil Spirit — that would injure the crops; 
but in the Gathas there is no trace of the precepts on 
agriculture. Zoroaster's own preachings, so far as his 
extant sermons indicate, were for a pastoral people pure 
and simple, not for one that had advanced to the stage 
combining agriculture with cattle-tending. The impor- 
tance of these instructions to care for the herds may be 
seen in the attitude taken by the followers of the Evil 
Spirit; they are foes of cattle-nurture, desolating the 
pasture lands, and doing violence to the cow, whose life 
they take with joy. This violence is personified as the 
archdemon who is the especial enemy of the archangel 
Obedience, a matter already mentioned. On the other 
hand, the follower of Right diligently cares for the Cow ; 

203 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

the archangel Good Thought is the patron of cattle, and 
Devotion, whose special province is the earth, cares for 
the pasture lands. Plants were created by Mazdah to be 
the food of the cattle. Zoroaster prays to Mazdah that 
the husbandman may receive increased skill in his care 
for the herds. In return, the herds furnish men with 
meat and with milk (Yasna, 29: 7). 

Somewhat contradictory to this is the interesting hint 
at a story of the Fall of Man ( Yasna 32 : 8) : Yima, son 
of Vivahvant, in a desire to gratify men, gave them the 
flesh of the Cow to eat. This he did with the idea that 
the food would confer immortal life upon his subjects; 
but he had been deceived into this false belief by the 
demons of the Evil Spirit, who wished men to follow 
the evil course. Thereby sin became rife among men, 
not wholly because of the violence to the cattle in order 
to get the flesh for eating, but because of the attempt to 
seek immortality in a wrongful way. The preachings 
of Zoroaster, we must remember, distinctly permit the 
use of flesh of the Cow as food, as well as that of the milk. 

For these reasons, the Cow, and more especially the 
Cow with calf, became in the language of Zoroaster a 
symbol of prosperity in this earthly life, and by an easy 
extension of meaning, the symbol of blessedness in the 
life after death ; paradise is spoken of as " happy dwell- 
ings rich with pasture." The same figure is illustrated 
again when he says that the righteous man shall hereafter 
dwell in the pasture of Right and Good Thought, and 
in a time of despondency he says, " I know, O Mazdah, 
why I am powerless; it is because few cattle are mine, 
and few men." 

Now the establishment of a religion for herdsmen 
is represented in this manner (Yasna, 29) : The Cow is 
like man, endowed with the power of making a free 
choice between good and evil; for her the choice is be- 
tween the herdsman and the raider. She chooses the 

204 



ZOROASTRIANISM 

herdsman. In distress from the raids of the barbarians, 
the personified Spirit of the Kine comes before the Creator 
of the Kine, an aspect of Mazdah and yet not identical 
with Mazdah, and asks for a protector against the op- 
pressors. The Creator of the Kine appeals to Asha to 
know if there is a judge and lord who may tend the 
kine, provide them with fodder, and drive off the violence 
of the followers of the Evil Spirit. Asha replies that 
there is none, and refers the Kine-Creator to Mazdah 
himself for help. At the appeal, Mazdah appoints Zoro- 
aster to reveal his will and to serve as lord and judge 
over the herds. But the Kine-Spirit utters a sad lament 
that a weakling man should be set in a position demanding 
power, and fears that Zoroaster's help will not be effect- 
ual. Hereupon Zoroaster prays humbly to Mazdah for 
strength to execute his mission ; and the Kine-Spirit, im- 
pressed by the evident sincerity of his prayer, expresses 
confidence that effectual help will now come to the herds. 
Such is, in summary form, Zoroaster's own account of 
his appointment as missioner of a herdmen's religion. 

An interesting point about the Zoroastrian faith is 
that the word for demon, daeva, is the word which in 
most kindred languages designates a deity of good char- 
acter. This has occasioned much discussion, the more 
so because the word for a good divinity in the Avesta 
is Ahura, while the same word etymologically in Sanskrit, 
Asura, denotes a demon. The latter point is of no con- 
sequence, for the Sanskrit word has independently 
acquired a bad meaning; the difificulty lies with the former 
word. We might inquire first, in this connection, what 
we can glean about the religion of the Persians before 
the coming of Zoroaster. The Gathas give us but a few 
points {Yasna 32 : 12, 14; 48 : 10) ; they hint at orgies in 
which the life of the Cow is slain, and the haoma< or fer- 
mented juice of some plant is used. The haoma is not 
indeed mentioned by name in the Gathas, but the allusions 

505 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

are unmistakable. One passage represents the followers 
of the false religion as saying, " Slay the Cow, that it 
may inspire the Death- Averter to help us." As Death- 
Averter (duraosha) is a constant epithet of the haoma 
in the later portions of the Avesta, there can be no doubt 
that the use of the haoma belongs to the religious rites 
which Zoroaster assails. Again, there can be no question 
of the meaning when he appeals to Mazdah to " smite 
the filth of the intoxicant, with which the false religion- 
ists evilly deceive." The slaying of the Cow in the orgies 
of this religion may perhaps point to some practice Hke 
the slaying of the bull in the rites of Mithra; but the 
indications are too scant for certainty. Yet we know 
that the deities Mithra and Anahita do not appear in 
Zoroaster's own teaching, but become prominent in the 
later Avesta; which unfortunately gives us no clue as 
to the date. The two are, however, given a place along- 
side Ahuramazda in the inscriptions of Artaxerxes I, 
who ruled the Persian Empire in the middle of the fifth 
century before Christ, where the three are a formal triad; 
but the added two are not to be found in the inscriptions 
of Xerxes, father of Artaxerxes, who celebrates Ahura- 
mazda alone. This is important for our understanding 
of the development of Zoroastrianism. I have earlier 
stated that the ceremony with the haoma or hom-juict is 
the most evident portion of the Parsi ritual of to-day, 
as in fact it was in the time of the later sections of the 
Avesta; and as Zoroaster himself denounced its use in 
the strong terms which have been quoted, the use of 
the haoma was, like Mithra and Anahita, an importation 
into the new religion from the older and supplanted faith, 
which though defeated must still have kept a powerful 
hold on the individual mind. To this older faith may with 
plausibility be ascribed also the institution of the Towers 
of Silence for the disposal of the bodies of the dead. 
Indeed, it is quite likely that the priests of the older 

206 



ZOROASTRIANISM 

religion, when definitely defeated in the struggle, accepted 
the situation, and bent their energies towards getting 
control of the priesthood of the new faith. That a class 
of men trained in the practice of ceremonies should have 
achieved their purpose is not astonishing, and we may- 
well believe that they then shaped the new religion by 
importing some of the old practices which its founder 
had condemned. And this brings us back to the problem 
of the meaning of daeva, ''demon" in Persian, but ''kindly 
deity " in other languages. If we grant such a religion 
as we find hints of in the Gathas, a religion having at 
its head, presumably, the old nature gods, whose name 
was daeva in Persian, Zoroaster might fitly use their name 
with abhorrence, and degrade it to the meaning of demon. 
His own religion had personifications of abstractions at 
its head ; the very word daeva, being connected with the 
word meaning sky, with Jupiter, Zeus, and the like, was 
not suitable to express his idea of a supernatural being, 
but was the very word to denote a false deity, evil and 
maleficent. This word, then, remains as a memorial of 
the fight waged by Zoroaster against the older religion; 
but many of the features of that older religion crept into 
the new faith in later times, as we have just seen. 

The Prophet Zoroaster. 

And what of Zoroaster himself? Must he remain a 
vague personality, surrounded by the myths attached to 
him in the later writings of the religion which he founded ? 
Or can we learn something of his Hfe and of his experi- 
ences, out of his own words? .A certain amount we do 
find there, but not enough to give more than a sketch; 
yet ample for a glimpse at the vigorous manhood, the 
trying career, the militant ministry of the prophet. 

Zarathushtra, as his name was originally, was of the 
Spitama family, and was a descendant of one Haecathaspa. 
His mission to the world came to him in the form of a 

207 , 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

series of seven visions. The first was one of Mazdah at 
the Last Judgment; the second that of Mazdah at the 
Creation. The other five were of the archangel Good 
Thought, who asked him whether he belonged to the evil 
or to the good, and for which party he would decide; 
who in the next vision instructed Zoroaster in the words 
of Mazdah; who then came to Zoroaster to observe his 
zeal for the right, and in the last vision to send him out 
upon his preaching. Thus ordained by Mazdah, he be- 
gan his mission, proclaiming his appointment as protector 
of the herdsmen and of the cattle, and announcing the 
certainty of reward in the next life, for the good and 
the evil done in this bodily life. It was no easy task : in 
his endeavor to proselyte the world he incurred the hos- 
tility of the former religion, its priests the Karapans and 
the Usij, and its chieftains the Kavis. Foremost of his 
opponents were the priest Grehma and the chief Bendva. 
Often his life was sought; but Mazdah protected him. 
Often the Prophet was plunged into the deepest discour- 
agement. Once he says ( Yasna; 46 : i ) , '' Whither, to 
what land, shall I go to escape? They keep me from 
the noble and from the priest, nor do the traders please 
me, nor the princes of the land, who follow the Druj. 
How shall I please thee, Mazdah Ahura ? " Even specific 
occurrences find mention in his sermons: once {Yasna 
44: 18) he had been promised a reward of ten mares, 
a stallion, and a camel — a bounty in keeping with a pas- 
toral civilization — and had failed to receive it; he 
threatens the unnamed breaker of his word with the 
penalty that comes for such misconduct. Again {Yasna 
51: 12), he instances the action of the favorite youth 
of a hostile chief or Kavi, who kept him and his two 
horses out shivering in the bitter cold, not allowing them 
to come in for refuge; even the place is named, the 
iWinter Gate. But still the prophet persisted in his ser- 
vice of Mazdah, with prayer and praise and preaching, 

208 



ZOROASTRIANISM 

proselyting and watching over the souk of men, and, in 
his own words, " presenting to Mazdah the life of his own 
body as an offering." Always thinking that the regenera- 
tion of the world would come soon, even within his life- 
time, he asks that as a visible sign of Mazdah's power 
there be given to him at once the conversion of the world 
and the coming of the millennium ; but this, alas, he was 
not to see. Until that time, he is the custodian of the 
good deeds of men, and at the Last Judgment he will 
present the faithful to the Judges, and will plead their 
cause; sometimes he even pictures himself as the judge, 
but that post he usually reserves for Mazdah. 

In course of time he won converts, ultimately in no 
small number. Amongst these he mentions a kinsman, 
Madyoimaongha, whom later tradition represents as the 
first convert of all ; and the Kavi or chief Vishtaspa and 
members of his court. The conversion of the chief was 
the turning point of his career, and may justly be termed 
his great success. Jamaspa, prime minister of Vishtaspa, 
accepted the faith, and received in marriage Porucista, 
daughter of the Prophet. Frashaoshtra, brother of Ja- 
maspa, gave to the Prophet his daughter as wife; not his 
first wife certainly, for Zoroaster speaks of a son and 
of daughters, one of whom, as we have just seen, was 
of marriageable age. Besides these, he mentions as con- 
verts the family of Fryana, a Turanian, one of the bar- 
barian tribes to the north who were afterwards the arch- 
enemies of the faith; a precious bit of evidence that 
Zoroaster did not limit his religion to any one people. 

Such is the picture of the Prophet which we get in the 
Gathas, the poetical sermons which have come down from 
him to the present day, giving the impression of a vivid 
personality, and preaching the doctrines of a religion 
destined for a nation of herdsmen, who must deal justly 
and forcefully to preserve themselves and their flocks 
from the enemy, both temporal and spiritual. To the 
14 209 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

later alterations and perversions of the faith, it has been 
impossible here to give more than a passing allusion. 
But let us remember that in its inception the religion of 
Zoroaster was one designed to meet a situation which 
was mainly economic, but that this religion had at its head 
a series of personifications of noble abstractions. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

J. B. Pratt: India and its Faiths, 191 5, pp. 318-39, on present-day 
aspects of Parsiism. 

A. V. W. Jackson: Zoroaster the Prophet of Ancient Iran, 1899, 
for the life of Zoroaster as portrayed in the ancient sources. 

K. Geldner : articles " Zoroaster," for the life of the Prophet, and 
" Zendavesta," for the contents and history of the Avesta, in the 
Encyclopedia Britannica, ed. 11, vol. 28. 

DosHABHAi Framji Karaka : History of the Parsis, 2 vols., 1884, 
for the subject from the Parsi standpoint. 

A. V. W. Jackson : An Avestan Grammar, 1892 : the introduction 
contains a convenient account of the contents, history, and inter- 
pretation of the Avesta. 

A. V. W. Jackson : *' Die iranische Religion," in Geiger and Kuhn's 
Grundriss der iranischen Philologie, vol. 2, 1896-1904; a com- 
plete picture of the religion as seen in the Avestan and Pahlavi 
sources. 

J. H. Moulton: Early Zoroastrianism, 1913, a most valuable study 
of the earlier aspects of the faith, with copious citations of 
sources and of modern authorities, and a translation of the 
ancient sources, including the most recent and best translation 
of the Gathas into English. 

Older translations of the Avesta are in the Sacred Books of the 
East, vols. 4 (1880) and 23 (1883), by J- Darmesteter, and vol. 
31 (1887), by L. H. Mills; into French, by J. Darmesteter, Le 
Zendavesta, 3 vols., 1892-93; into German, by Chr. Bartholomae, 
Die Gatha'^s der Awesta, 1905, and by Fritz Wolff, Avesta, die 
heiUgen Biicher der Parsen, 1910 (except the Gathas). 



210 



CHAPTER IX 
MOHAMMEDANISM 

BY MORRIS JASTROW, JR. 



Mohammedanism or Islam is ushered into existence 
in the full daylight of history. Despite this fact we 
know only little more of its founder, Mohammed, that 
is authentic than we know of Jesus and not as much 
as we know of Buddha. To be sure, the pious Moham- 
medan will resent this assertion, and claim that we have 
the details of the prophet's career down to the most 
trivial incidents, handed down by reliable witnesses and 
embodied in an extensive Hterature known as Hadith, i.e., 
'' tradition." Alas ! that this " tradition " about Moham- 
med breaks down under the test of critical examination, 
and the reported doings and sayings of the prophet turn 
out to be for the larger part inventions to reinforce ortho- 
dox beliefs and minutise in religious practices.^ The 
generation which knew Mohammed was devoid of the 
historic sense and left no record of his doings and sayings 
except the one which is furnished in the imperfect col- 
lection of his sporadic utterances known as the Koran. 
Through the Koran we can penetrate into the psychology 
of the prophet's intricate personality, but it does not 
suffice for tracing his career in detail. Out of the mass 
of late and untrustworthy traditions, we can supplement 
the Koran by some details — ^but only enough to sketch 
his life in general outlines. 

He was born of humble parentage in Mecca and in all 
probability in the year 570 a.d. There is an isolated 

* See Goldziher*s elaborate study of the Hadith Literature in his 
Muhammedanische Studien, 2, pp. 1-274. 

211 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

tradition that his real name was Kutam. Mohammed (or 
better Muhammad, '' the praised one " or " blessed ") ap- 
pears to be an epithet given to him. His father's name 
was Abdallah (servant of Allah), though the second ele- 
ment may have been a substitute for the name of some 
Arab god; and his mother is said to have been Amina 
(" the faithful one "). At a tender age Mohammed was 
left an orphan, the care of whom devolved first on his 
grandfather, Abd el-Muttalib, and after the death of the 
latter upon his maternal uncle, Abu Talib. Of his early 
years we know nothing till as a young man he entered the 
services of a rich widow, Khadijah, and as her agent en- 
tered upon mercantile pursuits. He subsequently mar- 
ried the widow, though she was considerably older, and 
had a large family — three sons and four daughters. The 
sons appear to have died before reaching manhood. 

We next hear of him as a preacher, exhorting the 
people of Mecca to cast aside the traditional worship of 
gods and to recognize Allah alone as the one god of the 
universe. This, the burden of his message, is repeated 
in many keys and in endless variations throughout his 
public career. " There is no god but Allah " becomes the 
inspiration of his life, while the corollary " Mohammed 
is the messenger of Allah " merely emphasizes his posi- 
tion as the mouthpiece of Allah, sent to proclaim him to 
his own people, as at other times messengers had been 
sent to other peoples — notably to Jews and Christians. 
He appears to have been about 40 years old when he 
first made his public appearance. The twenty-two years 
of his career as a " warner/' as he likes to call himself, 
are divided into two almost equal periods. The first 
twelve are spent in Mecca, where he succeeds in gather- 
ing a small circle of followers about him, but also arouses 
considerable opposition by his denunciation of estab- 
lished customs. This opposition, as well as brighter pros- 
pects of meeting with success elsewhere, prompts him to 

21:2 



MOHAMMEDANISM 

leave Mecca for Medina in the year 622 — an event desig- 
nated as the Hejira, i.e., " the flight," from which the 
Mohammedans date their official era. In Medina, situated 
some distance to the north of Mecca, he attracts great 
attention. His followers increase, and combining in a 
strange manner worldly ambitions with missionary zeal 
he acquires an influential position which in time makes 
him the virtual ruler of the place. We may trust the 
tradition which depicts him as the prophet militant in 
Medina, organizing marauding bands and dividing the 
booty derived from attacking caravans among his sol- 
diery. He occasionally meets with reverses, but on the 
whole gains in power until he feels strong enough to 
make an attack on Mecca. He enters the city in triumph 
and proceeds with his followers to the ancient sanctuary 
in the city, known as the Caaba (from its "cube "-like 
shape), and proclaims it as the " house of Allah." It be- 
comes from this time on the central sanctuary of Moham- 
medanism. 

In the closing years of Mohammed's career the 
religious movement inaugurated by him begins to assume 
the dimensions of a national uprising. The Arabic tribes 
scattered throughout the Peninsula become conscious of 
their unity. Mohammed as the prophet proclaiming a 
divine message to the Arabic people gives to the many 
separate groups a rallying cry that unites them under the 
standard of Islam. He fires their ambition of bringing 
the whole world to a recognition of Allah. Before Mo- 
hammed passed away at Medina in the year 632, at the 
age of sixty-two, practically all of Arabia had come under 
his control. He gathers able lieutenants about him who 
aid in the work of the organization of the Arabs into a 
great military camp, though the work is not perfected till 
after his death. 

Mohammed's mission thus takes on a two-fold aspect 
— religious and political. The time was ripe as a result 

213 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

of the disintegration of the old faith for a forward step, 
involving the recognition of unity in the universe in place 
of a diversity of more or less independent powers. The 
presence of Jews and Christians in large numbers in vari- 
ous parts of Arabia was an important factor in leading 
to the decline of Arabic heathendom. Mohammed no 
doubt came into contact with Jews and Christians, from 
whom he acqjuired an imperfect knowledge of these higher 
faiths, together with smatterings of Old and New Testa- 
ment stories, though in their Midrashic rather than in 
their Biblical garb. The Jews, more particularly, had 
amplified the Biblical tales of the Patriarchs and of such 
figures as Moses and Aaron with fanciful accretions, 
spun out with homiletic intent. Mohammed accepted 
these tales with little appreciation of their deeper import, 
just as the Christian doctrines of the Trinity and of the 
Pauline conception of Jesus lay beyond his mental hori- 
zon. The attempt to assimilate what he could not under- 
stand led to a frightful confusion and to most crude in- 
terpretations of both Judaism and Christianity, though, 
in so far as these faiths followed along the lines of 
Semitic thought, they appealed to his mental make-up 
and gave him much of what was valuable in his religious 
message. It is more difficult to account for the political 
union of the Arabs which Mohammed succeeded in bring- 
ing about. No doubt the hope of plunder and the ambi- 
tion of conquest were aroused by him, but as one of those 
rare individuals, born to leadership, he must also have 
stirred up feelings of a higher order that had lain dormant 
among the Arabs. Stirred to the depths, the Arabs be- 
came an irresistible force, carrying the new faith with the 
help of the sword to Persia on the east, to Palestine, 
Syria, Asia Minor, Egypt on the west. Northern Africa 
and southern Spain as well as Sicily became Mohammedan 
states, and although a definite limit was set to further 
northern expansion by the victory of Charles Martel at 

214 



MOHAMMEDANISM 

Tours in y'^2y Mohammedanism within the conquered dis- 
tricts not only maintained its hold but spread northward 
throughout Africa and eastward to India, to China and to 
the islands of the Malay Archipelago, as well as through- 
out the section of Europe that iDCcame part of the Turkish 
Empire at its height. To this day, Mohammedanism, 
though split up into large divisions and various sects, 
retains its hold upon more than two hundred millions. 

II 

How are we to account for Mohammed, how explain 
the profound impression made upon his surroundings by 
one who as he himself admits — and as the Koran shows — 
was an ignorant man? Without position to enforce his 
authority, without a powerful clique to aid him in his 
mission, without a John the Baptist as his forerunner, 
without a Paul to formulate his doctrine into an elaborate 
theological system, though that was eventually done by 
Mohammedan theologians and philosophers, Mohammed 
stands forth a solitary figure, crying to unwilling ears, 
derided at first, denounced as a madman, subject to per- 
secution, and yet destined to triumph in a manner that 
makes him still almost 1300 years after his death the cen- 
tral figure of Islam. Here, indeed, is a problem for the 
psychologist, the historian and the student of religions to 
grapple with. 

Until a century ago, to be sure, the problem did not 
exist. The prejudices of Christian Europe, reinforced 
by ignorance, had made of Mohammed a strange mixture 
of a cunning fanatic and a cruel, almost bestial tyrant, 
with scarcely a redeeming feature, unless it were his suc- 
cess in imposing pernicious teachings upon benighted 
masses. 

It was left for Carlyle to see with his keen psychologi- 
cal insight that the picture drawn by European writers 
could not be true. As a historical portrait, Carlyle's 

215 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

essay on Mohammed in his "Heroes and Hero Wor- 
ship," depicting Mohammed as the Priest-Hero, has at the 
present time Httle value. It has been superseded by the 
active researches of able European and American scholars 
and by the publication of native Arabic sources for the 
study of Mohammedanism which when Carlyle wrote 
were unknown. As a study, however, of the problem pre- 
sented by the appearance of Mohammed in surroundings 
where one would least have expected him, Carlyle is most 
suggestive and still worth reading. 

In the seventh century of our era, Arabia was still 
the centre of Semitic hordes as it had been from time 
immemorial, though settlements of Arabs had been made 
throughout Palestine and Syria, in Egypt and Meso- 
potamia. Despite the strong cultural influences emanating 
from these lands, to which must be added southern 
Arabia, where a high order of civilization was reached 
as early as the second millennium before this era, the bulk 
of the Arabs had kept to the nomadic life ; and even in 
the settlements within Arabia where, along the route 
leading from Syria to Yemen, cities had sprung up, the 
old animistic beliefs, investing trees, wells and stones 
with sanctity, still held sway. The sacred sites to which 
visits continued to be paid remained the same, except 
that at those which had acquired a prominence above the 
average the simple habitat of the guardian of the site had 
become a shrine of larger proportions. There v^as no 
central sanctuary, as there was no union among the tribes. 
Mecca in the days of Mohammed was merely one of sev- 
eral prominent towns that had a sanctuary of more than 
local importance — due in the case of Mecca in part to 
the fact that the city lay on the route to Okaz, where an 
annual market was held which brought Arabic tribes 
together from all parts of Arabia. In addition barter 
and exchange were carried on, tribal councils met, inter- 
tribal disputes were adjusted and contests of strength and 

216 



MOHAMMEDANISM 

skill held Such reunions served to keep alive the con- 
sciousness of the common bond of descent and tradition 
among the tribes. There was, to be sure, a marked dif- 
ference between the nomadic Arabs and those who had 
been weaned to settled conditions of life; and it is not 
accidental that Mohammed's family had been residents 
of a city for several generations past. As already sug- 
gested, the presence of many Jews and Christians in the 
settled portions of Arabia acted as a leaven and led to a 
weakening of faith in the ancient beliefs, though the rites 
arising from them continued to be practised. Such in- 
fluences may well have continued quietly for centuries 
without producing marked external changes. Stories are 
told of Arabs who had embraced Judaism or Christian- 
ity, but even after making full allowance for the influence 
exerted on Mohammed by the presence of higher faiths, 
the secret of the hold which the new belief reached must 
be sought in the study of his own mental and emotional 
equipment. 

The Arab, even the unlettered, is given to contem- 
plation. As a child of nature he is impressed by the phe- 
nomena around him, and we may assume that the wild- 
"^ess and alternate impressivejness and melancholy of 
austere mountain ranges with long stretches of for- 
bidding wastes were factors in leading to this contem- 
plative disposition upon which many writers have dwelt 
since Renan first emphasized the trait. Viewing Moham- 
med in this light we can understand how an impression- 
able nature, gifted with imagination, and swayed by emo- 
tions all the stronger for being uncontrolled, should have 
passed through a mental struggle of which tradition has 
preserved a record that is in part, at least, reliable. He is 
said to have retired to a cave outside of Mecca from time 
to time and there to have meditated amidst the solitude 
of the wild, rocky region on the mysteries of the universe 
and of human existence. What did it all mean — this 

217 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

never-ending play of nature, this regular succession of 
phenomena in the heavens and on earth, this surging 
mass of humanity, struggling and toiling as though driven 
by a hidden force, endeavoring to rise superior to sur- 
roundings and ever thrown back by stronger and appar- 
ently hostile powers ? Renan, to whose views a reference 
has been made, set up the thesis many years ago that the 
monotony of nature in Arabia, the home of the Semites, 
led naturally to the thought of a single power controlling 
the universe.^ In this extreme form the thesis, though 
defended with a wealth of learning and an ingenuity and 
brilliancy that challenges admiration, has not been ac- 
cepted. A monotheistic conception of divine government 
appears on the surface to be a philosophical abstraction 
developed in schools of thought rather than an intuition 
suggested by the impression made by nature upon man. 
We find the thought suggested by the theologians of 
ancient Babylonia who superimposed their comparatively 
advanced speculations on a basis of primitive myths. We 
find a remarkable movement in the direction of monothe- 
ism setting in in Egypt as early as the fifteenth century 
before this era, though likewise as the outcome of specu- 
lation in a land that had attained a high order of civiliza- 
tion. In the case of the Hebrews we find a genuine 
monotheism developed not by the priest of the sanctuaries 
but by a body of men who, while not schooled in philo- 
sophic thought, yet transformed a national Yahweh into a 
Power of universal scope through an emotional rather 
than an intellectual process, through the inward realiza- 
tion that the fate of mankind was in the hands of a Being, 
acting by self-imposed laws of righteousness. What the 
Hebrew Prophets taught was ethical rather than specu- 
lative monotheism. It was precisely this kind of mono- 
theism that Mohammed preached. His early utter- 

* Histoire Generale et Systeme Compare des Langues Semitiques 
(4thed),p. 6ff. 

2l8 



MOHAMMEDANISM 

ances convey the impression of burning thoughts that 
seek for an expression, and that are marked by their spon- 
taneous emotionahsm in combination with a strong ethical 
tinge. Mohammed was incapable of reaHzing the philo- 
sophical or theological implications of his central doctrine 
that " there is no god but Allah," but his strong emotional 
nature, stirred by the majesty of divine Power as it mani- 
fested itself in the impressive nature about him, and 
moved by an intense sympathy with the struggles and suf- 
ferings of mankind, was able to penetrate to the thought 
of the unity behind the phenomena of nature and to con- 
ceive of this unity as a great Father, stern at times as a 
father must be to wayward children and yet filled with 
love and tenderness for his offspring. Power in har- 
monious combination with love and justice is the domi- 
nant note in Mohammed's conception of Allah. 

It is of the essence of a monotheistic view of the 
universe, interpreted in terms of ethics, that it brushes 
aside difficulties which a purely philosophical concept 
would encounter, such as the question of free wall in a 
world controlled by an omnipotent and omniscient Power, 
ordaining and foreseeing all that happens, or the still 
more perplexing conundrum how to account for unneces- 
sary and unmerited suffering and the flourishing of in- 
justice and of w^ickedness in a world created by a benevo- 
lent Being. To Mohammed as to the Hebrew prophets, 
reaching their conclusions by the strength of their emo- 
tional nature, these difficulties did not exist, though the 
Mohammedan theologians of later generations were 
obliged to grapple with them, when the attempt was made 
to formulate the teachings of Mohammed into a system. 
Mohammed produced no system; he was incapable of 
doing so. To him the alpha and omega of the faith which 
after internal struggles he attained was an equation — 
Allah is Allah, the most high, the merciful, the just and 
the forgiving. 

219 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

There was nothing original in his teaching about 
Allah, except the force with which he enunciated his 
conviction throughout his public career that there was 
only one supreme Being to whom worship was to be paid. 
Even the name Allah, " the God," paralleled in the 
Hebrew eloah, which in a plural form becomes a generic 
designation for '' god," is not original with Mohammed. 
It appears to have been in general use among the Arabs 
as an epithet of any god conceived as powerful and 
strong. Mohammed tempered the austerity of the con- 
ception of a single all-powerful Being above and behind 
the phenomena of the Universe by the attributes of love 
and mercy, and the readiness to listen to appeal which his 
intense sympathy with struggling and suffering mankind 
led him to associate with Allah. If, therefore, we find 
him in this respect following in the footsteps of the 
Hebrew prophets, as also in those of Jesus, who seeks 
entirely to set aside the austerity involved in the con- 
ception of a strong god by a still more decided emphasis 
on His love and mercy, are we not justified in assuming 
that there is something in the temper created under natu- 
ral surroundings that produces men of the type of Amos 
and Hosea ; of Jesus and Mohammed — men not marked 
by intense intellectualism, certainly not profound 
thinkers as that term is ordinarily understood, but domi- 
nated by strong emotions, gifted with spiritual insight, of 
a contemplative and somewhat melancholy disposition, 
and impelled by their intense human sympathies? All 
these qualities taken together give to the utterances of 
Mohammed the stamp of an elemental force; and this 
applies more particularly to the earlier Suras of the 
Koran in which the sentences, loosely strung together, 
are blurted out with the power of an impetuous stream, 
seeking for an outlet. The revelation of Allah so far 
as Mohammed had any conception of it was of the order 

220 



MOHAMMEDANISM 

voiced by Amos to justify his denunciation of the sins 
of his people and his warnings of coming disaster: 

The lion roars, who is not afraid? 

Yahweh speaks, who will not prophesy? (Amos 3: 8.) 

Allah had spoken to Mohammed — through the Angel 
Gabriel, as tradition has it — therefore, he must speak. 

There can be no question of the profound sincerity 
of the man during the early stages of his career. The, 
vehemence of his denunciation of those who refused to 
listen to his message, who persisted in recognizing other 
Beings by the side of Allah, clinging to practices incom- 
patible with the demands made by a god like Allah, and, 
above all, the poetical character of those snatches of his 
early utterances that have been preserved, testify to this 
sincerity. The courage of Mohammed, which is one of 
the outstanding traits throughout his career, points in 
the same direction. The opposition which his rebellious 
utterances aroused and which in time became threatening 
did not swerve him from his path. He appears disheart- 
ened at times, but continues to speak out. The converts 
to the cause were few during the first years. Tradition 
has it that a slave in Mohammed's household was his 
first follower and it seems certain that his wife Khadijah 
stood by her husband, when those about him assailed 
him. In return he remained faithful to her and even 
after she had passed away and he took other wives, more 
attractive in their person, the memory of Khadijah ap- 
pears to have exercised its influence over him, though 
many of the stories told of their relationship are clearly 
apocryphal. Another early convert who was destined 
to play a most prominent role was a relative Ali who 
became his son-in-law. It would also appear that the 
conversion of Abu Bekr, a prominent merchant of Mecca, 
was a decisive factor in bringing the movement to more 
prominent notice. All the early followers of Mohammed 

221 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

who became known in tradition as his " Companions " 
showed their attachment to him. Only a sincere man 
can arouse such devoted followers as Mohammed gath- 
ered about him, and who, when the opposition to him 
reached a climax in the year 622 a.d., were ready to 
follow him to Medina, where, as we have seen, he laid 
the foundation of the Mohammedan state. 

The Hejira (or so-called "flight'') marks in almost 
every respect a turning-point in Mohammed's career. The 
struggles of the Mecca period were followed by the rapid 
successes that marked the change of his activities to 
Medina, but even glorifying tradition cannot conceal the 
weakness which he displayed in his new role as a secular 
leader. The Mohammed of Medina justifies the appeal to 
force as a means of securing the triumph of Islam. Acts 
of cruelty, particularly towards the Jews settled in and 
near Medina — who angered him by opposing his claim to 
being a follower of Abraham — are recorded that sug- 
gest a profound change of mental development in order 
to account for the transition of the Mohammed of 
Mecca to the Mohammed of Medina. His " revelations " 
degenerate into the ordres du jour of a general, self- 
conscious utterances to aid in carrying out worldly am- 
bitions. He also becomes prolix and the later Suras in 
contrast to the earlier ones are long and prosy, catering 
to the fondness of Arabs for tales, in order to regale 
his hearers rather than to edify and instruct them. He 
adds nothing to the message of earlier days, and yet 
it must be confessed that but for the policy that he pur- 
sued in Medina he would not have aroused the national 
consciousness of the Arabs. He fired their imagination 
with the prospect of a world-empire under the domina- 
tion of the religion that he founded ; and though he him- 
self, like Moses, was not permitted to enter the Holy 
Land, he left to his successors as a legacy the policy 
of spreading the Koran with the power of the sword. 

222 



MOHAMMEDANISM 

Mohammed thus presents the unique phenomenon of 
a founder of a religion who also leads to the establish- 
ment of a vast empire. Jesus breaks the national bond 
uniting his people by substituting for it a spiritual union, 
freed from national or racial limitations. Buddha is 
totally indifferent to national interests and becomes the 
preacher of individual salvation, irrespective of political 
or social associations. Zarathustra preaches his doctrine 
to his people alone. Moses creates the Hebrew nation, 
but although the political ideal is bound up with the 
exclusive worship of Yahweh as the protector of the 
nation, he can hardly be said to be the founder of the 
larger Yahwism — certainly not the founder of a uni- 
versal monotheism. Mohammed creates a world religion, 
Islam, and the Arabic nation as well. In Mecca he lays 
the foundation of a religion, capable of making its appeal 
to humanity at large ; in Medina he stirs up the imagina- 
tion of his followers to a pan-Arabic movement which 
was destined in the course of a few generations to exceed 
the fondest dreams of its promoters. 

Tradition reports that Mohammed was busy during 
the last year of his career in planning an expedition that 
was to carry the religion beyond the bounds of Arabia. 
This is open to question, though the example of Chris- 
tianity may have led him to indulge in such a hope. The 
year 632 put an end to any further ambitions that he 
may have harbored. At the beginning of that year he 
was seized with an illness that never left him. Worn 
out by a life of toil and excitement, he was in no con- 
dition to withstand the ravages of disease. His condition 
grew steadily worse and on the morning of the 8th of 
June he passed away. The story goes that Just before 
he died he dragged his weary body to the courtyard of 
his house to give a final greeting to the congregation 
assembled for prayer, led by Abu Bekr. A few hours 
later he sank into the lap of his wife, Ayesha, and closed 

223 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

his eyes in death. Impressive though hardly authentic 
is the tradition which represents Abu Bekr declaring to 
those who would not believe that Mohammed had passed 
away, ** He who worships Mohammed let him know 
that Mohammed is dead, but he who worships Allah, let 
him know that Allah lives and will not die." 

Ill 

The name given to the religion which Mohammed 
founded was Islam, based on the frequent use of the 
verb in this form in the Koran. It conveys the idea 
of " making one's peace " with Allah by a voluntary 
surrender to Allah's will. " Submit yourselves to Allah," 
says the prophet on many occasions. Islam is, therefore, 
a religion of submission. The name of the religion re- 
flects the simplicity and naivete of Mohammed's concep- 
tion of Divine Government. He feels the presence of the 
superior Power. To him Allah is something intensely 
real, almost tangible, and yet it can hardly be said that 
there is any mystic element involved in his thoroughly 
emotional submission to the will of Allah. 

The relationship in which Mohammed places himself 
towards Allah throws further light upon his conception 
of the divine arbiter of fates. Though devoid of any 
historical spirit in the proper sense of the term, the con- 
vrction is strong enough with him that Allah, the eternal, 
has at all times revealed himself to chosen messengers. 
Man could not through the effort of his reason alone 
reach to a knowledge of Allah. Mohammed's Allah is 
the same who manifested Himself to a long series of 
messengers beginning with Adam and ending with Mo- 
hammed as the one who put the " seal " on the utter- 
ances of his long line of predecessors. Divine revelation 
is thus a continuous process; and it will readily be seen 
how on the basis of such a view Mohammedan theologians 
could build up a system in which Islam would be the 

224 



MOHAMMEDANISM 

coping stone. The chain of prophets leading in unbroken 
hnks through Jesus, John the Baptist, the Hebrew 
prophets, EHjah, Samuel, Joshua, Moses, Abraham, Noah 
back to Adam, forms his strongest plea for calling upon 
Jews and Christians to heed his message to " submit 
themselves," even though he was primarily sent to preach 
to his own people. It is significant that even at the 
present time the rock on which the temple of Solomon 
stood in Jerusalem and around which the Mosque Haram 
esh-Sherif is built is almost as sacred to Arabs as the 
black stone in the corner of the Caaba at Mecca. Strange 
that in both Jerusalem and Mecca a stone, as a trace of 
the primitive Semitic stone cult, should form the sacred 
object, which suggests that in one sense Islam is a more 
direct expression of a genuine Semitic evolution of re- 
ligion than either Judaism or Christianity, into both of 
which, and more particularly into Christianity, other than 
purely Semitic elements have entered. 

This marked trait of Islam finds its strongest illustra- 
tion in the Koran, which, containing the authentic utter- 
ances of Mohammed, forms for this reason our main 
source, in some respects our only source, for Mohammed's 
view of the religion which he founded. The circum- 
stances under which the collection was made within a 
few years after Mohammed's death are detailed in the 
Hadith literature, but only so much of the "tradition" 
can be regarded as reliable which associates the gathering 
of Mohammed's utterances during the Mecca and Medina 
periods with the three lieutenants of the prophet who in 
turn became the head of the new state after Mohammed's 
death, namely, Abu Bekr, Omar and Othman,^ and with 
Mohammed's secretary, Zaid ibn-Thabit. There is every 
reason to believe that shortly after Mohammed had ac- 

■The title " Caliph " given to those who assume the authority of 
Mohammed designates them as the " successor " or " substitute " of 
Mohammed. 

15 225 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

quired a leading position in Medina his utterances were 
written down by some of his followers, because of the 
supreme importance that came to be attached to his words. 
In the earlier years this was not the case, but the im- 
pression made by the novel style of his warnings and 
denunciations, by his allusions to Biblical characters and 
tales, by his descriptions of the glories of Paradise in 
store for those who followed in the path of Allah was 
sufficiently pronounced to ensure their oral transmission, 
especially among a people accustomed to handing down 
stories, poems and sayings by word of mouth. 

The Koran is not a large book. By a rough estimate 
it is about one- fourth the size of the Old Testament, and, 
considering that it comprises utterances stretching over 
twenty years, the small size is in itself a guarantee of its 
authenticity, as it is also a proof that we have not a 
complete record of all that the prophet said during his 
public career. The style of the Koran is individualistic. 
Mohammed could well challenge those who made sport 
of him to produce anything like it. Frankly admitting 
himself to be an ignorant man — he probably could neither 
read nor write — ^he points to the style of his utterances 
as a proof that what he says is imparted to him by a 
Divine revelation. In its final form the Koran was di- 
vided into 114 Suras, the larger ones at the beginning, 
the shorter ones at the end,^ with a headline to each, indi- 
cating whether a Sura was revealed at Mecca or Me- 
dina.^ There is, however, no further attempt at chrono- 
logical order, and so we are left to unreliable tradition 
regarding the circumstances under which a Sura was pro- 
nounced or to a critical estimate of internal evidence for 
the more precise order of the chapters.^ 

* An exception is made in the case of the first Sura, which, con- 
sisting of seven verses, is the "doxology" of Mohammedanism. 

^ In the case of some there is a doubt whether they belong to 
the first or second period. 

"Noldeke, Geschichte des Qordns, 2d ed., by F. Schwally (1909). 

226 



MOHAMMEDANISM 

At first blush, a confusing blending of statements and 
arguments, interspersed with sharp denunciations, bits of 
stories, word pictures of Allah's power and of his mercy, 
eloquent appeals, and endless repetitions, it seems amazing 
that such a collection of utterances should have acquired 
a sacred character. Yet here is the fact that at the present 
time more than two hundred millions of worshipers still 
regard the Koran as divinely inspired from beginning to 
end, and as the supreme guide of life. The explanation 
of the phenomenon is to be found in the profound im- 
pression made by Mohammed upon his contemporaries. 
What he says comes to be viewed by his followers as 
a revelation, because he says it. The Islamic theory of 
revelation thus rests entirely upon the impression made 
by a single personality, in contrast to Judaism where it 
develops from the belief in a group chosen by the Deity, 
and to the Christian doctrine, which rests upon the annul- 
ment of an old covenant in favor of a new one, but like- 
wise deriving its initiative from a supreme ruler and not 
as the reflection of any single personality. 

Viewed in this light, as an expression of Mohammed's 
personality, the Koran at closer range becomes a re- 
markably interesting and in some respects a fascinating 
work. As we make the attempt in a sympathetic spirit to 
allow the influence of the prophet's personality play on 
our emotions, we discover many passages of striking 
power and not a few of a certain strange beautyJ 

The miscellaneous contents of the Suras of the Koran 
make it impossible to give more than a general char- 
acterization of the collection. There is no logical arrange- 
ment within a Sura, no gradual unfolding of an argu- 
ment, nothing in short which we would associate with 
either an essay or a sermon. There is in all the Suras, 
and particularly in the longer ones, a sudden transition 
from one subject to the other, often so sudden as to be 

'S.^r.— Sura 2, 15-19; 3, 112-114; 22, 1-4; 38, 1-9; 56, 1-24. 

227 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

perplexing. All is in confusion, and the general im- 
pression conveyed is that the Suras are a conglomeration 
of fragments, loosely put together. It is not surprising, 
therefore, that in the task of systematizing the teachings 
of Mohammed on the basis of the Koran, differences of 
opinion arose which led to the formation of sects, though 
other factors contributed to the splitting up of the Mo- 
hammedans into many groups. Almost any philosophical 
opinion or theological interpretation of the doctrines of 
Islam could find a support in the Koran. Advocates of 
the freedom of the will appealed to the utterances of the 
prophet, equally with those who carried to an extreme 
the belief that all was preordained by Allah.^ After a 
struggle lasting for several centuries, in the course of 
which a large variety of " heresies " came to the fore, 
Mohammedan orthodoxy triumphed, free discussion was 
virtually suppressed, and Islam settled down to a division 
into two large groups, the followers of Sunna, or **' tra- 
dition," and those who deviated therefrom, chiefly, in 
not recognizing the first three " successors " or caHphs, 
Abu Bekr, Omar and Othman, as legitimate and making 
Mohammed's second cousin and son-in-law Ali his direct 
heir. This was the party known as Shi'a — a term which 
conveys the force of " partisan." The strength of the 
Shiites lay in Persia, and this, perhaps for the reason 
that although the movement is of Arabic origin the idea 
of the incarnation of the deity in a human being, which 
became a leading principle of Shi'ism, fitted in with 
inherited Aryan beliefs in the divine character of king- 
ship. To the Shi'ites Ali became such an " incarnation " 
— 3, thought abhorrent to the followers of Sunna. Only 
one who was divinely chosen could, according to them, 
be the successor of Mohammed. That person, it was 

* See for details Goldziher's authoritative work, Mohammed and 
Islam (English translation by Mrs. L. H. Seelye), especially chapters 
3 and 4. 



MOHAMMEDANISM 

claimed, was Ali and after him in a regular family line 
other successors known as Imams or " leaders." Several 
other religious beliefs, of an Ar>^an rather than Semitic 
stripe, were introduced into Islam by the Persian fol- 
lowers of Mohammed, 

Within the circles of Sunna, which comprise the 
Mohammedans of Arabia, Palestine, most of Syria, Egypt 
and northern Africa, as well as of India, four divisions, 
or rather '* rites," are recognized as orthodox, known 
from their founders as Hanbalites, Shafi'ites, ^lalikites 
and Hanifites.^ They differ from one another in matters 
of ritual, while agreeing substantially in their doctrinal 
interpretations. 

IV 

Taking up, in conclusion, the chief rites of Islam in 
further illustration of the general character of the re- 
ligion, we must again bear in mind that the systematiza- 
tion of these rites is the work of the theologians on the 
basis of the Koran, to meet the requirements of the grow- 
ing communities of followers and the organization of 
the Mohammedan state. 

It is not easy to follow this process of organization 
in detail, though it would seem that prayer (salat) in 
unison was one of the first steps to be taken. There is 
no adjuration more frequently repeated in the Koran than 
the one to " be steadfast in prayer." The institution of 
daily prayers in imitation of Jews and Christians was 
one of the most radical innovations introduced by !Mo- 
hammed into the lives of the Arabs. Exactly why he 
fixed upon five periods daily, instead of the three obser\'ed 
by pious Jews, we do not know.^^ The prayer was at 

•On the geographical distribution of these diWsions, see Gold- 
ziher, op. cit., p. 55 ff. 

^* On the most sacred day of the Jewish calendar, the Day of 
Atonement, the Jews have five prayer periods, and it may be that this 
suggested to Mohammed that number for daily worship. 

229 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

first merely a gathering of the faithful with Mohammed 
as the leader. The example of the prophet became the 
pattern followed to this day. Public prayer in the mosques 
is offered always under a leader who takes his place in 
front of the worshipers and leads in the exercise, much 
as the head of a company gives his commands. Leader 
and worshiper direct their faces towards the Caaba at 
Mecca. The service consists of several " cycles " of 
prayers, and each cycle of a number of postures, carried 
out in unison by the leader — with the worshipers ar- 
ranged in rows behind him.^^ Prayer thus convention- 
alized and having the appearance of a military drill is a 
religious exercise rather than a spontaneous prompting 
of the desire for communion with a higher Being. The 
form and formulas of prayers are thus alike stereotyped, 
with the praise of Allah and a recital of his majesty as 
the main features, and the individual request conspicuous 
for its absence. The salat (prayer) is essentially a 
humble acknowledgment five times daily of Allah's great- 
ness and of his supreme control of everything. 

So far as the external form of Islam Is concerned, the 
influence of Judaism is strongest perhaps in the public 
service. On the other hand, Christian influence is be- 
trayed in the institution of a fast period patterned after 
the Lenten season and extending for a period of one 
lunar month. Mohammed fixed upon a month, known as 
Ramadan, which even in pagan Arabic had acq'ulred a 
special significance as a period of truce from all hostil- 
ities. Abstention from food from sunrise to sunset made 
this fast the most arduous requirement imposed upon 
the prophet's followers, only to some extent relieved by 
the permission to Indulge in eating and drinking during 
the night, so as to prepare for the daily fast. Inasmuch 
as the Mohammedans still follow the lunar calendar of 

" See Lane, Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modem 
Egyptians, i, pp. 90-113. 

230 



MOHAMMEDANISM 

ancient days, with no adjustment to the solar year, the 
season in which Ramadan falls varies constantly. When 
it falls during the hot summer months, the hardship in- 
volved in abstaining daily from water as well as from 
food for a period of considerably more than twelve hours 
is a terrible strain, particularly since the labors of the 
day go on uninterruptedly. Indeed, outside of the festi- 
vals in memory of the saints which are times of feasting, 
of processions and of jollifications, and generally repre- 
sent old local cults to which a Mohammedan character 
has been given,^^ Islam has neither festivals nor an insti- 
tution like the Christian and Jewish Sabbath. Friday, 
to be sure, has acquired a special significance but merely 
as a day of " gathering," ^^ when the obligation to attend 
the public service is more strictly observed, without, 
however, any cessation of the daily toil. 

The fast (saum) of Ramadan, though strictly ob- 
served throughout the Mohammedan world, has never 
acted as a factor in preserving the hold of the religion 
upon its adherents as is the case with the daily prayer, 
nor does it serve to impress upon the individual the sense 
of belonging to a world-wide community as does a third 
" pillar " of the faith — the pilgrimage to Mecca. In 
making this visit to the holy city in which Mohammed 
saw the light of day obligatory upon every Mohammedan, 
Islam builded probably better than it knew. With the 
spread of Islam by conquest throughout the East and into 
parts of western Europe, the religion became international 
in scope, and the allegiance to Mecca emphasized by the 
pilgrimage was the chief factor in maintaining amidst 
all vicissitudes through the succession of centuries down 
to our days the ideas and ideals of catholic Islam. The 
Mecca pilgrimage, as it forms the most striking visible 

" Such saints' days are common in Egypt, Palestine and Persia — 
but not in Arabia. 

" It is known as the Yaum el-JamV, " day of gathering." 

231 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

bond among all those who in whatever part of the world 
follow the standard of the prophet, is also the strongest 
bulwark against the entrance of modern currents of 
thought into the religion. This is all the more note- 
worthy because the Haj ^^ — as the pilgrimage is called — 
has so little about it which is connected with the higher 
and essential aspects of Islam. It represents the grafting 
of an old ceremonial antedating the time of Mohammed 
by many centuries on to a religion which has its roots 
in a revolt against the very conceptions of religion of 
which the ceremonial is an expression. The researches 
of European scholars ^^ have shown that the real goal of 
the pilgrimage was originally a sacred mo-untain Muz- 
dalifa in the valley of Mina, just outside of Mecca. Se- 
mitic hordes living in mountainous regions placed the seat 
of their gods on the mountain tops, in addition to seeing 
manifestations of the divine in trees, wells and stones. 
In a sense every mountain was sacred and one need only 
recall the sanctity attaching in Palestine to Sinai, Nebo, 
Gerizim, Seir, Zion and Carmel to- realize how deeply 
ingrained the conception was among the Semites. It 
became customary for Arabs to pay an annual visit to 
Muzdalifa. Three days were spent at the Mount, the 
ceremonies culminating in a general sacrifice of sheep 
to the deity to whom the Mount was sacred. In Mecca 
there was an ancient sanctuary, built around a stone that 
had acquired special sanctity, and it was natural for those 
who came from various parts of Arabia by this way to 
the mountain to stop at the sanctuary to pay their re- 
spects to the god of the Caaba. Mecca thus acquired con- 
siderable importance long before the days of Mohammed. 
It was, however, the accident of Mohammed's birth in 
Mecca and his own attachment to the Caaba, of which 

"Meaning "circuit," i.e., around a sanctuary. 
''See especially Snouck Hurgronje, Het Mekkaansch Feest, 
Leiden, 1880. 

232 



MOHAMMEDANISM 

the clan Korelsh to which he belonged were the guard- 
ians, that transformed the old pilgrimage to MuzdaUfa 
to an act of worship centring around the Mecca sanctu- 
ary. Mohammed could not cut himself entirely loose 
from time-honored associations and so the Caaba became 
for him the '' house of Allah " par excellence. His ex- 
ample in performing the traditional rites at Mecca and 
on the way to Muzdalifa on the occasion of his last visit 
to his native town became established usage among his 
followers, leading to the duty resting upon every Moham- 
medan to make the pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in 
his lifetime. 

There was, to be sure, just as much or just as little 
reason for connecting Islam with Muzdalifa as with the 
Caaba. The rites performed at both belong to the same 
order and are survivals of primitive Semitic religion. 
At Muzdalifa the chief rite was, as we have seen, an 
animal sacrifice; at Mecca it was the circuit around the 
Caaba, generally seven times, and kissing the sacred black 
stone ^^ at each turn. There were other sacred stones 
near the sanctuary, and to this day it is customary to 
stand on these stones or to touch them so as to acquire 
their beneficent influence. Little chapels have been built 
around four of such sacred stones in the large courtyard 
surrounding the Caaba, each chapel being dedicated to one 
of the four orthodox sects or divisions of Islam. A fur- 
ther trace of stone cult is to be seen in the ceremony of 
throwing stones at three strange-looking rocks in the valley 
of Mina, for the purpose, as it is now said, of driving off 
evil demons personified by these rocks, but which at one 
time must have been regarded as sacred. Further, within 
the colonnaded enclosure around the Caaba ^'^ there is a 

" On the character of this stone as for all details regarding the 
pilgrimage, see Burton's classical work, Personal Narrative of a 
Pilgrimage toAl Medinah and Meccah (many editions) — one of the 
most fascinating works that have ever bern written. 

"See the illustration in Snouck Hurgronje's Mekka (The 
Hague, 1888), PI. 2, or Traugott Mann, Der Islam (Leipzig, 1914), 
p. II. 

233 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

sacred well, known as Zemzem, out of which it is regarded 
to be both a privilege and sacred duty to drink as part of 
the pilgrimage ceremonial. We have thus a combination 
of stone, water and mountain worship in connection with 
the pilgrimage, and only the fourth element of primitive 
Semitic worship, the sacred tree, is lacking to make the 
cycle complete. Finally, besides the sacred Mount Muz- 
dalifa, there are two small hills just outside of the en- 
closure around the Caaba at a distance of a few hundred 
feet from one another and known as Sawa and Marwa. 
Between these hills the pilgrim runs forward and back- 
ward seven times. 

Now, to connect these strange and purely primitive 
rites with Islam, the Mohammedan theologians evolved 
series of formulae, prayers, if you choose, containing the 
praise of Allah and extracts from the Koran, to be recited 
frequently by the pilgrims and in connection with the 
rather complicated ceremonies,^* but the ceremonies them- 
selves are far older and of independent origin. The Haj 
or pilgrimage thus turns out to be artificially grafted on 
to Islam. Even the month selected for it, known as the 
Zu-l-Haj, " month of Haj," is the traditional period in 
which the visit to Muzdalifa was performed generations 
and centuries before the appearance of Mohammed; and 
as a final proof that the attachment of a visit to the 
Caaba is an after-thought, one may instance the fact that 
the circuit round the Caaba may be made at any time 
during the year, as may also the running between Sawa 
and Marwa and drinking out of Zemzem or standing on 
the stones around the Caaba, whereas the journey through 
the valley of Mina to the sacred Mount can be undertaken 
only during the " month of pilgrimage." It is more 

*'Snouck Hurgronje in his standard work on Mecca, chapter 2, 
pp. 28-47, has shown how an elaborate organization was perfected 
in the city to provide for the pilgrims coming from all parts of the 
Mohammedan world and to guide them in the correct performance 
of the various rites and ceremonies. 

234 



MOHAMMEDANISM 

particularly the loth day of this month which must be 
passed on Muzdalifa. The night of the 9th is spent at 
the foot of the mountain and early the next morning the 
ascent is made to greet the sun at its rise. In order to 
give also this rite of worship a Mohammedan character, 
it is provided that the pilgrims must listen to a long 
sermon on Islam while gathered on the mountain. 

Mohammed in thus setting the example for all times 
of observing rites that had merely the sanction of an- 
tiquity to commend them, shows himself to be a child of 
the age in which he lived, despite his departure from 
ancient beliefs. The power of traditional custom was 
too strong for him, but on the other hand his retention 
of old rites, though foreign to his religious teachings, 
made it easier for the Arabs to accept his message. Islam, 
in fact, was never hostile to the retention of popular 
beliefs, such as the one in jinjts or demons, as long as they 
did not interfere with the central doctrine of Allah's 
supreme power. Popular customs having their roots in a 
distant antiquity, such as hanging votive objects on sacred 
trees,^^ were retained with little or no consciousness of 
their being survivals of beliefs inconsistent with advanced 
religious conceptions. The hold that the Haj has upon 
"Mohammedans everywhere is amazingly strong. The 
greatest longing of every believer is to see the Caaba, to 
kiss the black stone and to perform the other rites. He 
who has once performed the pilgrimage is secure against 
any temptation to be weaned from the faith of his fore- 
fathers. Each year tens of thousands ^^ do not shun the 
hardship of wandering on foot for months to- reach the 
sacred spot. No sacrifice is too great, no exertion too 
heavy; and if one cannot go oneself, one scrapes enough 

" See many examples of the survival of primitive rites in Pales- 
tine and Syria among the Mohammedan population in Curtiss, Primi- 
tive Semitic Religion To-day (Chicago, 1902). 

" It is estimated that the Haj brings over one hundred thousand 
Moslems each year to Mecca. 

235 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

money together to purchase a substitute. The railroad 
communication now estabHshed from Damascus to Medina 
will further stimulate the pious to increased efforts to 
obtain the wherewithal to carry out the obligation to 
imitate the example set by the prophet. To acquire the 
title of Hajji, bestowed on the one who has been to 
Mecca, insures a through passage at death to Paradise. 

If the Haj is the visible bond uniting all Moslems 
into a single vast community, another requirement served 
to establish the economic basis of Mohammedanism — 
the jsakat or *' poor tax." In the case of the three '' pillars 
of the faith " that we have been discussing—prayer, fast- 
ing in the month of Ramadan, and the Haj — we have 
illustrations of the powerful personal influence of the 
prophet. These duties are obligatory because of the ex- 
ample set by the prophet. Two of them are due to direct 
adaptations from Judaism and Christianity respectively, 
while the third is of native origin, emphasizing a dis- 
tinctively Arabic phase of the religion. The zakat has 
a more complicated history. At its start it appears to 
have been a *' charity " contribution for the support of 
the poor. As such it is a tribute to the prophet's humani- 
tarian instincts, and indeed throughout the Koran there 
is the strongest possible emphasis upon kindness to- the 
poor, and protection for the widow and orphan. " The 
poor ye will always have with you'' is accepted as an 
axiom and it is assumed that every follower of Moham- 
med is charitably inclined. *' Prayer," a caliph is made 
to say, " carries us half-way to Allah, fasting brings us 
to the door of His palace, but alms-giving procures us 
admission." 

To understand this emphasis we must take into con- 
sideration the unregulated economic conditions of the 
ancient East, which still exist at the present time. The 
poor are an element of the population in every town and 
village as distinct as are the traders, the workers, the 

236 



MOHAMMEDANISM 

learned and the state officials. The view is not uncommon 
that the poor exist in order to evoke the charitable spirit 
of mankind. It is Allah who makes the poor and the 
rich. The poor man is in some respects a privileged 
character, since he is the cause of storing up '' merit " ^^ 
for oneself by dispensing charity, a merit of which one 
will reap the reward when the day of judgment comes. 

The mkat, however, came to serve an entirely different 
purpose, dictated by the conditions that arose with the 
two- fold aspect of Islam as a religion and a state. Instead 
of being a voluntary contribution for the support of the 
poor, the j^akat was made a legal assessment to form part 
of a revenue for the state — a tax imposed upon every one, 
which in time led to many ramifications. The ^akat 
was the starting-point for the development of a com- 
munity or state budget. To this day the legal fiction 
of the sakat is maintained as the basis of governmental 
taxes and a distinction was introduced between the ^akat 
as a compulsory contribution, and sadakat (** charity") 
as voluntary alms-giving in addition to the zakat. This 
"pillar" of the faith thus furnishes an illustration of 
the combination of state functions with religious duties, 
so characteristic of the theocratic form of government 
which developed with the spread of political power 
through the conquests of the Arabs. 

The combination of church and state in Islam led to 
other features, quite distinct from those which resulted 
from the same process in Christianity. Islam never de- 
veloped a priesthood in any real sense. The civil and 
religious authority was concentrated in the caliph to an 
extent for which no parallel exists in the Christian states 
of Europe. As the Mohammedan power split up into 
several caliphates, in rivalry with one another, complica- 
tions, to be sure, ensued which were only partially set 

" Zakat conveys the idea of " merit " ; as does the corresponding 
word in Hebrew, sekuth. 

257 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

aside by the establishment of the Turkish Empire in 
control of the entire Mohammedan world. In theory, 
however, the Sultan is the head of the church as well as 
of the state. Opposition to that authority is based on its 
supposed illegitimacy, for neither the Shiites nor a great 
body of those who follow Sunna were ever reconciled to 
recognizing the Sultan of Turkey as the real successor 
of Mohammed. That opposition grew in strength as the 
Turkish Empire began to crumble, until to-day only a 
small proportion of the Mohammedan world feels bound 
to follow the authority of the Sultan, even when he calls 
the faithful to enter upon a jihad — a crusade for the 
preservation of the faith. As a concession to the religious 
supremacy of Islam, the Sultan nominally recognizes the 
authority of an official known as the Sheikh el-Islam, 
" the Chief of Islam," who enforces the decisions of the 
Turkish state by an endorsement in the name of the re- 
ligion. Naturally such a " chief," resident in Constanti- 
nople, is merely a creature of the state, so that his author- 
ity is largely nominal. The revolt of Arabia since the 
outbreak of the war 22 is merely the last of various at- 
tempts to reestablish a central form of theocratic gov- 
ernment with the religious factor as the dominating one. 
A union, however, of Mohammedans that should be 
at once political and religious is a hopeless task, as hope- 
less as any such union in Christendom. Even under the 
dominion of orthodoxy such unions were condemned to 
failure. The rise of Protestantism marked the failure 
in the greatest attempt at such a combination that had 
ever been made. Catholicism came nearer to success, 
because of its efficient organization and because of the 
powerful aid given by a strong priesthood. But even 
Catholicism could not prevent a split between Eastern 
and Western Christianity. With the growing strength of 

^ See Snouck Hurgronje's account, The Revolt in Arabia. Eng- 
lish translation by Prof. Richard Gottheil, New York, 1916. 

238 



MOHAMMEDANISM 

national consciousness in the states of Western Europe, 
its power even over Western Christianity steadily declined 
until the final break between Church and State came, 
inaugurated by the Protestant Reformation. As indi- 
cated, the process proceeded along different lines in Islam, 
but the issue was identical. The Mohammedan state 
projected by Mohammed was doomed to failure, but the 
religion founded by him will survive this failure, as Chris- 
tianity survived the separation of Church and State, 
which, with the growing force of democracy in govern- 
ment, becomes an absolute divorce. 

At present, with the infusion of Western ideas and 
strong Western influences into Mohammedan lands, Islam 
may be said to be on trial, even in a more decided sense 
than Christianity, which is feeling the force of the new 
currents of thought, brought on by the discoveries in the 
realm of the natural sciences. Will Islam be able to adapt 
itself after its long intellectual isolation from outside cur- 
rents to the new conditions demanded by the inevitable 
changes, superinduced by modern thought, modern modes 
of life and modern political drift? 

The strength of Islam has always consisted in the 
simplicity of its doctrines, despite the elaborate theological 
systems constructed in the course of centuries around 
these doctrines. The first " pillar of faith," ^^ the procla- 
mation of the unity of Allah, emphasizing the thought of 
unity in the phenomena of the universe, is not difficult to 
grasp in its Islamic form, which leaves room, as we have 
seen, for the persistent popular beliefs in good and evil 
demons that alternately aid and check the efforts of man. 
The ritual, except for the obligation of prayer five times 
daily, is not burdensome. Life hitherto in the East has 
not been over-strenuous. Time is a cheap commodity, 

"The five "pillars," as above set forth, are usually enumerated 
as follows: (i) Shahada, the witness to the faith in the unity of 
Allah; (2) Salat, prayer; (3) Zakat, the poor-tax; (4) Saum, fast- 
ing during Ramadan; and (5) the Haj, the pilgrimage to Mecca. 

239 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

and to- turn aside from one's toil for a brief prayer ser- 
vice which may be performed anywhere is not as onerous 
as it would be in our over-busy Western world. Besides, 
the obligation has never been strictly observed by the 
great masses. The pilgrimage to Mecca is a wonderful 
excursion — a great experience in one's life ; and a religion 
that thus imposes travel as an obligation need have no 
fear of diminishing the attachment to it. The fasting in 
Ramadan is a burden, though cheerfully borne, as is the 
zakat because of the assurance of reward for the " merit " 
thus acquired. Taking over from Jews and Christians 
the doctrine of enjoyment of a perpetual Paradise for 
the pious, Mohammed improved upon the models by 
painting the joys of eternal bliss in colors specially adapted 
to lure the untutored nomads, living in a land where the 
dearth of water entails hardships and where life suffers 
from its monotony. To look forward to- life in a garden 
where luscious fruits are to be had for the picking, where 
water flows in abundance and where black-eyed damsels 
are ready to serve and to attend to all one's needs, was 
calculated to make a strong appeal to others as well as to 
the nomad, by its contrast to agriculture, with its rela- 
tively hard conditions of life. In the Biblical description 
of primeval Paradise, on which the picture of the joys 
in store after death for those who have lived a life 
according to the dictates of religion is based, there is the 
same contrast between the ideal state of the gardener 
who has merely to stretch forth his hand to obtain his 
food, lying under the shadow of trees on the banks of 
cooling rivers, as against the agriculturist who cultivates 
the soil in the sweat of his brow. 

The ethics of Islam are simple. Fair dealings with 
one's neighbors and kindness towards animals may be 
said to sum up the chief virtues, though they must be 
supplemented by the performance of the religious duties 
and the obligation to have one's children instructed in the 

240 



MOHAMMEDANISM 

teachings of Islam. Abstinence from strong drink, em- 
phasized by Mohammed in connection with his general 
opposition towards the luxuries that accompany a higher 
culture,^^ made for simple habits of life and encouraged 
a self-restraint that acted wholesomely in other respects. 
Though on the whole an austere religion, Islam did not 
discourage the cultivation of the fine arts,^^ though with 
a restriction against the reproduction of the human figure. 
It directly promoted literature, with the exclusion, to be 
sure, of the drama, and furthered science, more particu- 
larly medicine and mathematics, by the side of historiog- 
raphy, geography and jurisprudence, bound up, however, 
with the theological legalism. Nor should we forget our 
debt to the Mohammedan theologians and thinkers who 
transmitted the teachings of Aristotle, albeit that they 
gave to his speculations a Mohammedan garb. 

Up to the present the indications are that Moham- 
medanism can absorb Western influences to a certain 
extent without either losing its character or its hold on 
the masses. The impression one receives on a visit to 
Egypt where contact with the West is direct is that merely 
the surface of Islam has been touched by the infusion of 
Western modes of life. The old incrustated culture of 
the East, so indissolubly bound up with Islam, stands 
proof against attacks, at least to the extent of preserving 
all its essential features. 

Just here is the crux of the problem. Islam is more 
than a religion — it is a distinct form of civilization, just 
as Christianity is part and parcel of European and Amer- 
ican civilization, and as Buddhism is bound up with the 

** Viniculture encounters opposition in the Old Testament as 
against agriculture, which is the ideal state — to be preferred to 
commerce and city life. See a paper by the writer, "Wine in the 
Pentateuchal Codes," Journal of the American Oriental Society, 
33: 180-192. 

" On Mohammedan art in its various ramifications, see the 
magnificent work of Sarre and Martin, Muhammedanische Kunst 
(3 vols., Munich, 1912). 

16 241 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

Hindu attitude towards life. In a contact between two 
civilizations as distinct from one another as the Islamic 
East and the Christian West there seems to be no possi- 
bility of a mutual approach. Certainly, one may question 
whether missionary efforts, however praiseworthy and 
however zealously and skilfully conducted, will ever 
bring about such an approach — perhaps in part for the 
reason that on the purely religious and ethical side Islam 
has so much in common with Christianity, though differ- 
ing, to be sure, in some essentials. Professor Snouck 
Hurgronje,^^ indeed, looks hopefully towards the future. 
He believes that an understanding between Islam and the 
modern world (which is the Western world) is possible, 
though he does not tell us what this understanding will be. 
He resents the implication of Kipling's poetical despair, 

East is East, and West is West, 
And never the twain shall meet, 

and regards it as " almost a blasphemy " so' far as the 
Moslem world, which he knows so well, is concerned. 
And yet one cannot see how Islamic (which is Oriental) 
culture can yield to Western influences beyond a certain 
limit without entering upon a distintegrating process. 

This from many points of view would be regrettable. 
After all, are we not in danger of over-emphasizing the 
value of unity which may lead to a dull uniformity? Our 
aim should rather be a unity of ideals, while recognizing 
that there are various paths leading to these ideals. 
Mohammedan culture, tied to Islamic beliefs, is one of 
these paths, mapped out by the course of history in 
Eastern lands. The failure of Islam to find a footing 
in Western Europe or in this country is a significant in- 
dication of its limitation, while responding instinctively 
to the Eastern outlook on life. Looking on Islam as 
an expression of the Eastern mood, it seems safe to pre- 

^ Mohammedanism, p. 177. 

242 



MOHAMMEDANISM 

diet that it will disappear only with the eclipse of the 
civilization of which it forms an integral part. One may 
conceive of a complete conquest of the East by the West 
without a disappearance of Eastern civilization or the 
extinction of the Oriental spirit — so totally different from 
its Occidental coimterpart. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The Koran, best English translation by E. H. Palmer, in The Sacred 
Books of the East, vols. 6 and 9, Oxford, 1880. 

C. Snouck Hurgronje: Mohammedanism, New York, 1916. 

C Snouck Hurgronje : Mekka, The Hague, 1888, 2 vols, and port- 
folio of Illustrations. 

D. S. Margoliouth : Early Development of Mohammedanism, Lon- 

don, 1914. 

D. S. Margoliouth : Mohammed and the Rise of Islam, New York, 
1905. 

Ignaz Goldziher : Mohammed and Islam, translated from the Ger- 
man by Mrs. L. H. Seelye, Yale Press, 1917. (Corrected edition 
to be issued in 1918.) 

Traugott Mann: Der Islam: Einst und Jetzt, Leipzig, 1914 (elab- 
orately illustrated). 

Richard F. Burton : Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al- 
Medinah and Meccah (many editions). 

T. W, Arnold: The Preaching of Islam, second edition, London, 
1914. An admirable survey of the spread of Islam throughout 
the world and its present status. 

The Mohammedan World of To-day (papers on present-day con- 
ditions by Christian Missionaries), New York, 1906. 



«43 



CHAPTER X 

THE RELIGION OF GREECE 
BY WALTER WOODBURN HYDE 

In this chapter it is my task to treat the first of the 
historical religions which grew up on European soil — 
that of the Greeks. In many fundamentals of its de- 
veloped form it differed from the religions already 
treated, although it was profoundly influenced through- 
out its history by the religious ideas of the near Orient, 
especially Egypt. The record is a long and varied one, 
for Greek religion continued on the higher plane of an- 
thropomorphic polytheism for a period of at least two 
thousand years, back of which stretched long ages of a 
pre-anthropomorphic past. During its whole evolution 
it was quite unchecked by any tradition of revelation or 
by sacerdotal dogma. It adapted itself easily to all the 
changes in the social, political and intellectual history of 
the most gifted of peoples, continually assimilating new 
and foreign ideas, and in its later periods it was pro- 
foundly influenced by the greatest poets, philosophers and 
artists. It was, in fact, part and parcel of Greek civiliza- 
tion and outlook on life and it shows the same mobility, 
the same love of freedom and capability of progress which 
we see in all phases of Greek culture, — characteristics in 
general absent from the Oriental religions, which tendecf 
to crystallize early into fixed and dogmatic types. 

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS 

At the outset, before entering upon a historical ac- 
count of this religion, I will indicate a few of these char- 
acteristics of the developed form which it assumed in the 
Classical period of Greece. The first thing to strike us 

244 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE 

IS the absence of many ideas common to most of the 
Eastern religions. Whereas these generally emphasized 
certain dogmas, Greek religion was primarily a matter 
not of belief at all, but of practice. The Greeks had no 
dogmas, no creeds, no sacred writings. Their religion 
had no founder and never felt the need of a reformer. 
They had no idea of any revelation of the divine will to 
men except in particular instances, and their religion 
never pretended to judge the lives of men from an ethical 
standpoint ; it acted far more as a stimulus than as a re- 
straint to their consciences. It left little room, therefore, 
for a Hebrew prophet or an inspired preacher or teacher. 
The Greek gods were not looked upon as holy nor omnipo- 
tent ; they were removed but a little way in character and 
power from mortals. The idea of deifying living men, 
which assumed such proportions in the later centuries, 
was itself an evidence of the almost human character of 
these gods. The idea that the gods cared for men was a 
late conception. There were, to be sure, certain hymns 
to the gods, like the so-called Homeric Hymns, and there 
w^ere prayer formulas for special occasions, like the rain- 
prayer of the Athenians, along with elaborate rituals at 
various shrines for certain festivals and expiations for 
public and private use. Perhaps certain views of the God- 
head and versions of legends about the gods and heroes 
might enjoy exceptional authority, such as would justify 
their being called, in a very qualified sense, orthodox. But 
even if, in this sense, Homer and Hesiod were repre- 
sentative of Greek orthodoxy, their poems never formed 
a Bible; nothing was systematized nor compiled in writ- 
ing even for a single state; the priesthood was never 
hereditary, as were those of the Brahmans and Eg>^ptians, 
and, furthermore, the priests never had any office of in- 
struction or exhortation. 

This absence of a founder, sacred writings and uni- 
form priesthood resulted In the extreme freedom of Greek 

245 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

religion. This was merely a reflection of Greek political 
freedom. The contrast between the physical features of 
the Balkan peninsula, in which Hellenic civilization 
evolved, and those of Egypt and Mesopotamia, has often 
been made. Whereas the valleys of the Nile and Eu- 
phrates, unbroken by natural boundaries and enjoying the 
same climate and products, were predestined by their 
configuration to become not only cradles of culture, but 
early to be united into powerful states, which developed 
a uniformity of culture largely excluding change, Greece, 
on the other hand, broken up into valleys by intersecting 
ranges of hills and surrounded on three sides by the sea, 
whose gulfs and bays penetrated far into the land and 
made natural ways of communication, was predestined to 
just the opposite — variety of climate, products and occu- 
pations, and consequently had a different history. The 
City-State grew up to live its own life in its own sur- 
roundings. This political particularism was nowhere 
better reflected than in Greek religion. As each City- 
State had its own constitution, just so it had its own 
worship and cycle of gods. As there was no political 
centralization, no national state until the latest days, there 
was no national religion. Instead there was a great di- 
versity of cults in various towns and the only authority 
in religious matters was the local shrine tradition. To 
be sure, a community of beliefs and practices among neigh- 
boring states might at times result in larger units, religious 
confederacies or amphictyonies around a common shrine. 
A few such shrines, like those of Apollo at Delphi and 
Zeus at Dodona, might in course of time become recognized 
by all Greeks and vitally influence their religious and 
moral ideas. Such unions were always exceptional and 
seldom made for much unit}'' of ideas or conformity in 
externals. Everything in Greece — ^physical conditions, 
differences in blood, in dialect, in culture^ — tended to pro- 
duce variety and idiosyncrasy in states and individuals 

246 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE 

and these were all reflected in religion. However, I 
must add that amid all this local variation there was a 
certain uniformity of religious psychology which uncon- 
sciously tended toward similar beliefs and practices, and, 
consequently, in a summary account of Greek religion, we 
can loosely speak as if there were a uniform system more 
or less true of all Greece, even if it does not apply in 
detail to any one state. As a whole, then, the religion of 
the Greeks had a physiognomy of its own, very different 
on the one hand from that of the Vedic Hindus, or that 
of the Romans on the other. 

Another characteristic was the marked tendency in 
Greece to subordinate the priest to the civil magistrate. 
Priests were appointed as state officials; temples were 
built and maintained by state moneys and religious law 
was administered by state courts. Thus the priests, chosen 
by lot or elected for a time by the community, were in no 
sense the final authority in religious matters ; they merely 
carried out the vote of the assembly under the direction 
of the magistrates, so that religious authority was really 
vested in the people and no Greek City-State ever became 
theocratic. The priests were in no sense teachers, but 
were bound only to maintain and perform the traditional 
ritual service at the altar they served. This shrine ritual 
was the result of centuries of evolution, constantly chang- 
ing as it passed from generation to generation, ever tend- 
ing toward unity of belief in the worshipers, but never 
compelling it. It could not stand for long in the way of 
secular advance nor moral progress. On the contrary, 
speculation and progress were looked upon as divine 
attributes. As Farnell says: "The religion of Hellas 
penetrated the whole life of the people, but rather as a 
servant than as a master." Apart from the public wor- 
ship there were many mystic cults where newer and more 
advanced ideas might be taught, thus breaking the bar- 
riers of tribal and civic cults. Consequently every Greek 

247 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

had great latitude in his beliefs. We may infer from a 
remark of the Platonic Socrates that the Athenians in 
general cared little what a man believed so long as he 
did not proselyte. Aristophanes could ridicule and Eurip- 
ides could doubt the popular beliefs; but no one could 
openly proclaim disbelief in the existence of the gods or 
refuse to join in the pubHc worship. As religious beliefs 
were never settled, there was no danger of a Greek being 
cast out of the synagogue or the priesthood for holding 
views different from those of other people. He merely 
had to refrain from publicly preaching doctrines which 
might be construed as interfering with the orders of the 
State. Religious persecution, then, occupies little space 
in the story of the Greeks. Before Alexander's time it 
was dangerous to introduce foreign cults into Greece, not 
only because they were at variance with the recognized 
State worship, but also because their orgiastic spirit was 
repellent to Greek taste. Anaxagoras, the philosopher, 
was tried for doubting the gods and Protagoras, the 
sophist, was banished, and, worst of all, Socrates was put 
to death on the ground of ridiculing them. However, 
these were all exceptional cases and none of them can be 
shown to have been wholly inspired by religious feelings. 
The slaying of Socrates was unique and, whatever may 
be said, was a stain on the history of Athens, entirely 
out of place in a city so vaunting of its freedom. To us 
Socrates seems a noble character, the greatest glory of 
the city which saw fit to kill him. Dogmatic intolerance, 
however, had little to do with this crime, which appears to 
have been mainly political. He was not a thorough-going 
democrat and did not believe in the " bean " ; anythingf 
savoring of oligarchy in 399 B.C., only a few years after 
the expulsion of the Thirty Tyrants, was odious and this 
doubtless aroused the suspicions of his judges. But the im- 
mediate cause of so strange a verdict may be found rather 
in the circumstances of his trial — the independent bearing 

248 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE 

of the old man, his flat refusal to change his mode of life, 
his contempt of resorting to the usual appeals to- pity, 
and, above all, the insolence of his counter penalty — to be 
kept for the rest of his life at the Prytaneum at the public 
expense as the honored guest and benefactor of Athens, — 
in short, his careless, defiant attitude, which fanned into 
flame the old embers of political distrust. 

In the Classical period the chief thing to impress the 
worshiper was the pomp and ceremony of the public 
worship — the beautiful temples, the artistic cult statues, 
the stately processions and the solemn ritual. In all this 
we see the characteristics of a people endowed beyond all 
others with a sense of the beautiful and a capacity to enjoy 
life, who worshiped gods in whom they saw their own 
ideals. Consider the glorious frieze of the Parthenon and 
imagine how in the days of Pericles the great Panathenaic 
procession, the most brilliant worship with which Athena 
was honored at A.thens, moved in stately wise from the 
lower city up through the Propylasa to the Acropolis 
and then along both sides of this most beautiful of all 
Greek temples to its eastern front. Such a procession, 
leading beasts for sacrifice and carrying the sacred robe 
of the virgin goddess, which had been woven by chosen 
matrons and maidens, was representative of all that was 
noblest in Athenian worship. Archons and lesser magis- 
trates, bands of men and youths chosen for their beauty, 
maidens of the noblest families carrying sacrificial vessels 
and implements, representatives of allied and tributary 
states, resident aliens, musicians and attendants — all took 
part, escorted by chariots and knights with military pomp. 
In their midst, at the sacrifice and offering of the robe, 
sat the invisible gods in assembly, the guests of Athena. 
No god was ever worshiped more gloriously than by this 
galaxy of beautiful forms moving along with its wealth 
of color in the luminous atmosphere of the city of the 

249 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

violet crown amid the immortal monuments of those 
mortal men. 

Beauty was not the only feature of Greek worship, for 
joyousness was also there. Religion rested lightly on the 
shoulders of the Greek. He was not oppressed by any 
deep sense of sin; he thought well of himself and not 
too well of his gods. If he only avoided the graver 
offenses against morality and especially the amour propre 
of his gods, he had little to fear. The ever-recurring 
festivals, celebrated with music and processions, accom- 
panied by theatrical, gymnastic or orchestral competitions, 
were real holidays. Even if the opening days of some 
of these festivals, like the Spartan Hyacinthia, were sad, 
they generally ended with feasting and dancing. Sacri- 
fices and prayers were intended not so much for expiation 
as for asking and acknowledging blessings received from 
the gods. When in sickness or danger the Greek made 
his vows, and on recovery or escape he religiously paid 
them. Plato tells us he prayed morning and evening and 
concluded every meal with hymn and prayer ; but of course 
such devotions would become as perfunctory to the Greeks 
as our table blessings have become to us. 

The Greek, then, delighted in the beautiful and joyous 
side of worship, but we must not fall into the mistake of 
concluding that his religion was all beauty and joy, just 
because that side of it meets us most often in his literature 
and art. As sunlight cannot exist without shadow, Greek 
worship also had a darker side. Calamities w^ould come 
upon Individuals and states and these would be laid at the 
door of malignant or offended deities. Great criminals 
were followed then as now by the avenging furies of con- 
science. There was also much in Greek religion that was 
repulsive and ugly. Many lower forms were retained, 
even if moribund, to the latest times side by side with 
higher ones. These cannot be ascribed to Oriental origin, 
for nothing is more Greek than some of the grossest of 

250 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE 

them. Nor is it reasonable to class as foreign everything 
in Greek civilization which clashes with our ideal of the 
Greeks. Greek mythology contained many repulsive ele- 
ments, which were constantly denounced by ancient 
writers like Pindar, Euripides and Plato. Many of these 
beliefs must have had a deleterious effect on morality. 
The forms of worship and the sacred formulae were, how- 
ever, in the main pure and refined. There was never 
any orgiastic spirit in Greek religion. There was no sex- 
ual defilement in the early temples, no licentiousness in the 
*' sacred marriage " at Eleusis or elsewhere, even if the 
Church Fathers insinuated it. There is little evidence to 
show that the worship of Aphrodite was, generally speak- 
ing, any less decorous than that of other goddesses. Her 
statues were draped down to the time of Praxiteles and 
the Hellenistic sculptures which realistically portray the 
physical charms of the Phrynes of the time are no more 
concerned with the real religion of the Greeks than the 
fleshy voluptuous Magdalenes of Rubens are with 
Christianity. We hear much of sanctified prostitution in 
her honor, but it was mostly late and confined to a few 
temples, as those of Cyprus and Eryx, Cythera and 
Corinth. Phallic ritual was rare and for the most part 
confined to vegetation cults and the philosophical litera- 
ture of Greece made little protest against it. In short, 
if Greek religion had a dark side, it was never prominent. 
Great artists, thinkers and poets found deep meaning 
in the popular worship. Such minds as vEschylus, 
Sophocles, Socrates and Plato were deeply religious and 
found both truth and comfort in the people's faith. Aris- 
totle said the name " father " applied to Zeus included 
the idea of his loving care of men. St. Paul (Acts i8: 
28) quoted a late Greek poet, Aratus, to the effect that 
" we are his offspring.'* The Stoic Cleanthes, in his beau- 
tiful hymn, says much the same words — even if he meant 
thereby that human reason was a fragment of the divine. 

251 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

The humanness of the gods and the divineness of men 
were never more clearly felt than by the Greeks. While 
the Hebrew taught that man was made in God's image, 
the Greek made his gods in the image of men. Where 
men are mortal gods, the gods are merely immortal men. 
With all the freedom and formalism of Greek worship, 
the question has often been raised as to whether the 
Greeks were really religious. If religion consists in a 
belief in a power or powers higher than men; if it is a 
longing for protection and sympathy from them, and if 
prayer and sacrifice and the wish to propitiate them are 
religious acts, the Greeks were truly religious. The mate- 
rial of religion in its two departments of theology and 
ritual was much the same in Greece as elsewhere — sacri- 
fice and offering, prayer and hymn, propitiation and 
thanksgiving, purification and expiation, magical rites, 
belief in ghosts and demons, ancestor and clan worship 
and the formation of a pantheon. These elements are the 
common stock of reHgion among all peoples of similar 
degrees of culture ; what was characteristic of the Greeks 
was not the material, but the way in which it was handled. 
Where the Australian stopped, the Greek passed on. 
Every Greek town had more shrines than a modern city 
has churches. You remember how Paul's spirit was 
provoked within him as he beheld Athens full of idols 
and found the Athenians " somewhat superstitious " 
.(Acts i6: i6, 23). He came upon altars not only to 
many gods but to an " Unknown God " erected in Athens 
as elsewhere to correct any possible omission. The Greek 
calendar was at first invented merely to determine the 
festivals. Greek religious imagination was continually 
tending to become the impulse to two other forms of 
activity — ^art, both literary and plastic, and philosophy. 
Greek art was always the handmaid of religion and would 
have satisfied even Tolstoy's definition. Greek literature 
was saturated with religion. The drama was religious 

252 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE 

in origin and development. Greek philosophy was always 
theological in character. Greek law was religious in its 
origin and development. Even the athletic games were 
religious in origin and spirit, always associated with the 
worship of gods and heroes, and were among the strong- 
est Pan-Hellenic influences, making not only for nation- 
ality, but also for a broader religion than that of tribe 
or city. 

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY OF GREEK RELIGION 

The scientific study of Greek religion as distinct from 
mythology is very recent; it may almost be said to be 
the work of the last generation of scholars. Only through 
the recent development of anthropology and comparative 
religion has it become possible finally to classify it in 
the world's creeds and appreciate its importance for the 
history of culture. It seems strange that the religions 
of India and China — ^to say nothing of those of savage 
races — should have been studied so long to the almost 
total neglect of the religions of Greece and Rome. Even 
yet, most people, to whom the superiority of Greek 
poetry, philosophy and art is an axiom, doubt whether 
the study of Greek religion is really worth while. Through 
its association with a romantic, though not always edify- 
ing mythology, it has been looked upon as an inferior 
product of the gifted Greeks. Yet we know now that it 
has the same beauty and imagination which we have long 
recognized in other phases of Greek civilization and that 
the Hellenic spirit shows itself here quite as worthily 
as elsewhere. Apart from any such general considera- 
tion, there are also very definite reasons why we should 
study the religion of the Greeks. The student of re- 
ligious origins finds in it material which, for variety and 
detail, has no equal in any other religion. The student 
of history finds that in this phase of her culture, as in 
all others, Greece began at the beginning and struggled 

253 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

slowly upwards to the mountain tops. During its long 
course over centuries Greek religion never suffered from 
any internal revolution so that the deposits of earlier ages 
were never entirely obliterated, but to the last these im- 
prints of the successive periods of culture through which 
the Hellenic race passed were preserved; thus their re- 
ligion reveals to us more clearly than anything else the 
evolution of the Greeks from savagery. As Gilbert Mur- 
ray says : " There is hardly any horror of primitive super- 
stition of which we cannot find some distant trace in our 
Greek record. There is hardly any height of spiritual 
thought attained in the world that has not its archetype 
or its echo in the stretch of Greek literature that lies 
between Thales and St. Paul." ^ 

Lastly, we must not forget that the potency of this 
religion did not end with the greatness of Greece, but con- 
tinued on into later Europe. It was not blotted out by 
Christianity. On the contrary, whatever real power it 
had, passed over into the ideas and forms of our own 
religion to such an extent that one could maintain that 
Greek religion has exercised indirectly as much influence 
on the various phases of modern religious life as mythol- 
ogy has on modern literatures. The influence of the re- 
ligion of Greece on Christianity is too complex a subject 
to be more than hinted at in this connection. That ancient 
rites should have persisted in the Eastern Church under 
the cover of the new religion, and that ancient gods and 
heroes should reappear as saints, is not so surprising when 
we reflect on the summary way in which Constantine 
established the new faith. It was not difficult to convert 
the Parthenon into a Christian church, when the virgin 
goddess of wisdom was supplanted first by St. Sophia and 
later by Mary. Similarly, it was easy to replace Apollo 
by St. George and Poseidon by St. Nicholas, the patron 
saint of sailors. Nor should we be surprised when we 

^ Four Stages of Greek Religion, 1912, p. 16. 

254 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE 

see an old Greek rite celebrated now by a Greek priest. 
The influence of Greek theology and philosophy on Chris- 
tian belief can be directly traced in the changes wrought 
in the concept of Christianity, when it had to be cast into 
a new mould to meet the changed atmosphere from Pales- 
tine to Europe. Though the influence of the old ritual 
on the plastic ritual of the early church cannot be traced 
so easily, it may be said in general that the simplicity 
of the primitive Christian sacrament gradually had given 
way by the fifth century to the richly developed ritual of 
the church, which was only an evolution of ancient Greek 
rites. 

Miss Harrison has shown why this study has been 
neglected until these later years. In the first place it was 
not studied as a whole but in only one phase — mythology. 
As Greel* myths were necessary to an understanding of 
Greek literature, the confusion between mythology and 
religion was fatal to a proper appreciation of the latter. 
As every reader of the classics learned about the Greek 
gods through the myths, it was easy to think that mythol- 
ogy and religion were identical, though, as a matter of 
fact, there is little connection between them. Myths, 
however beautiful, can hardly have inspired religious 
sentiments. Sometimes they reflect the ritual and again 
they were invented to explain it and thus contain im- 
portant cult ideas. But in general Greek myths were 
utterly irresponsible; poets could select or change them 
at will to suit their immediate purpose. Thus in the Iliad 
the Apollo of Book I, worshiped by Chryses, and the 
Apollo of Book XVI, who wounds Patroclus from behind 
on the field of battle, have little in common. Myths fre- 
quently fell below the level of the current worship which 
was always free of the impurities which we see in the 
former. Again, the mythology which was studied by 
classical students was looked upon as ancillary to litera- 
ture and not to religion. Moreover, it was distorted by 

255 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

Alexandrine and Roman literature. It is not so long ago 
that scholars called the Greek gods by Latin names, and 
the mistake still keeps up among lovers of classical litera- 
ture. We now know that even if Zeus and Jupiter, 
Athena and Minerva, were akin, they were not identical. 
Scholars have by now largely corrected the nomenclature, 
but we are still prone to give Alexandrine or Roman 
natures to the Greek gods, making them the ornamental 
gods of an artificial literature. We no longer call Eros 
Cupid, but we do think of him as a naughty little cherub 
with bow and arrows, just as the Alexandrine poets and 
Ovid conceived him. Such an idea would surely have 
astonished the worshipers of his own city of Thespiae, 
where his most ancient image was an unwrought stone. 
We now know also that Dionysus was not a beautiful god 
of wine, but an ancient tree-spirit once worshiped as a 
pillar, and that the Sirens, instead of being bewitching 
mermaids, were curious bird-demons with women's heads. 

RECENT ACCESSIONS TO OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GREEK 
RELIGION 

A change has come. The religions of Greece and 
Rome are now scientifically studied and are no longer 
looked upon as identical, but almost as different as any 
two religions can be. Greek religion is no longer studied 
for the purposes of mythology only, but as an important 
factor in the spiritual history of the race, an integral part 
of Greek civilization. However, it does not owe every- 
thing to a reform in the methods of study, but also to 
recent accessions of material through archaeological in- 
vestigations. Instead of now going to Alexandrine or 
Roman literature to learn about the Greek gods, we supple- 
ment the knowledge we gain from the Greek writers by 
a study of every particle of evidence unearthed by the 
spade — ^vase paintings, wall paintings, statues, bronzes, 
terra-cottas, cult objects, inscriptions. Especially have 

256 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE 

the earlier periods of Greek religion been enriched by ex- 
cavations on prehistoric sites. The revelation of a pre- 
Hellenic culture in the ^gean area, due, in the first 
instance, to the discoveries of Schliemann beginning in 
the seventies at Troy, Tiryns, Mycenae and elsewhere and 
culminating in those of Evans and others carried on since 
1900 on the island of Crete, hasi revolutionized our 
knowledge of prehistoric Greece and added new and 
striking chapters not only to Greek history but to Greek 
religion. We can no longer call the Greeks young in com- 
parison with the Oriental peoples, nor can we any longer 
indulge our fancy into believing that Greek civilization 
was a thing unexampled in history, rising almost at a 
bound out of nothing to its heights of splendor, as the 
walls of Ilium were fabled to have risen beneath the 
hands of their divine builders, for we now know that 
obscure millennia preceded its supposedly sudden bloom. 
The recent discoveries in Crete have profoundly changed 
all our ideas of the antiquity of the earliest European 
culture. Not even have the remarkable discoveries of the 
last generation made in Egypt and in Mesopotamia re- 
vealed to us a world so new and unexpected as that dis- 
closed to us in the palaces of Crete. To classical students 
of twenty years ago Crete was hardly more than a land 
of legendary heroes. Many stories told us of Cnossus, of 
Minos's realm, of his Labyrinth and its strange prisoner 
the Minotaur, of Theseus and Ariadne, of Daedalus and 
Icarus, the first aeronauts. Historians, like Grote, had 
looked upon the period between these legends and the 
historical age as a great gulf of darkness behind which 
we could never hope to go. Greek history began with 
the first Olympiad; even the return of the Heraclidae 
and the Dorian invasion were looked upon as chiefly 
fanciful. Homer's poems were read because of their 
transcendent poetic value, but the scenes which he de- 
scribes were supposed to be imaginary projections on the 

257 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

past of his own age, behind which lay the wasteland of 
legend. When, in 1878, Schliemann discovered the tombs 
of Mycenae he naively imagined that he had found the 
actual skeletons of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra and 
beheld their features in the gold- foil death masks found 
with them, and that he had recovered the very cup out of 
which Nestor had drunk, the pigeons still intact on the 
handles. This arouses our humor now, for we know that 
these were the tombs of the first kings of Mycenae, who, 
perhaps, had come from Crete long before when the town 
was built. But the historicity of the golden court of the 
Atridae cannot be disposed of so easily. Walter Leaf, 
in his very recent book on Homer, finds it reasonable to 
look upon the Homeric heroes as historical characters 
instead of '' faded gods," and believes it quite possible 
that the quarrel of Agamemnon and Achilles, as staged in 
the Iliad, was an actual incident which took place in the 
Achaean camp and that it may have seriously affected the 
campaign against Ilium.** 

Though Schliemann's discoveries produced in his day 
more wonder than scientific results, we now know that he 
proved the existence of a civilization which was the origi- 
nal of Homer's descriptions, though far older, for the 
divine poet sang of a golden past. It was not, however, 
until Evans and Halbherr, followed by scholars of Eng- 
land, Italy and America, had unearthed the palaces of 
the sea-kings of Crete, that we discovered that we — 
with more daring than the fabled Icarus — ^had flown 
right over the heads, not only of the historical Greeks, 
but of Homer's heroes as well, for we learned that this 
^gean culture must have antedated by many centuries 
the building of the walls and galleries of Tiryns. We 
then learned that the period which Schliemann had called 
Mycenaean — ^the term applied to the palaces, houses, 
tombs, pottery, weapons, gems and ornaments which, 

^Horner and History, 1915, p. 29. 

258 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE 

wherever found, exhibit a more or less striking similarity 
to those laid bare on the citadel of Mycenae — was merely 
the decadence of a far richer culture whose centre was 
Crete, and that behind Homer's pictures were centuries 
of development of which neither he nor the historical 
Greeks had any inkling. We now know that this ^gean 
civilization, properly so-called, extended over Crete, 
Southern Greece and the isles of the iEgean, while an- 
other, proven by its pottery to be different, grew up 
subsidiary to or parallel with it in Central and Northern 
Greece, at Troy and on the island of Cyprus. In the Late 
Bronze Age — corresponding to the " Great Palace " 
period at Cnossus and the succeeding Mycenaean period 
of the mainland, and contemporary with the XVIII 
and XIX Egyptian dynasties (c. 1 600-1 200 B.C.) — the 
^gean civilization, radiating from Crete, influenced this 
other independent culture at Troy, in the sixth of the 
nine buried cities on the hill at Hissarlik, and replaced or 
overlaid it in Thessaly and Cyprus. The ^gean culture, 
though borrowing much from Egypt and probably from 
the Hittite peoples of Asia Minor, was an indigenous one, 
evolved among the primitive dark-skinned peoples who 
"inhabited the whole eastern basin of the Mediterranean 
for countless centuries before Homer's fair-skinned 
Achaeans wrested the sovereignty from their degenerate 
descendants. A brief account, therefore, of the ^gean 
religious ideas and practices, as we learn of them espe- 
cially in Crete, forms a necessary preface to the early re- 
ligion of the same Mediterranean stock, which grew up 
more or less independently on the mainland of Greece, 
where it formed the substratum of the historical Greek 
religion. The problems of this Minoan-Mycenaean relig- 
ion are not yet ready for final settlement, but we can draw 
certain definite conclusions from the evidence so far ac- 
cumulated. We can understand something of the ritual 
of those early days and something of the deities to whom 

259 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

it was addressed ; but until the script, now lying unread on 
the tablets from the Cretan palaces, shall have found its 
Champollion, we shall know little of its theology. 

THE PREHISTORIC ^GEAN RELIGION 

One of the chief characteristics of this Mediterranean 
cult is the fact that palace and temple were not yet differ- 
entiated. Sacred caves and gorges were venerated as the 
dwelling of deity, but the only religious structures dis- 
covered are a small chapel in the palace at Cnossus and 
miniature shrines for domestic worship. But the re- 
ligious element in the frescoes which decorated the palace 
walls tells us that a large part of the building was devoted 
to cult purposes and has led Sir Arthur Evans to believe, 
on the analogy of the priest-king in the characteristic 
Anatolian cult of Cybele, that the king was at the same 
time the high-priest. 

It is certain that the Minoans had arrived at the stage 
of theism in very early days and their religion appears 
to have been from the beginning a nature cult. They 
embodied their chief concept of deity in feminine form, 
a sort of Great Mother, whom the later Greeks identified 
with Rhea. Most scholars, following the lead of Evans 
and Hogarth, have interpreted this deity as a nature 
goddess, whose care, like that of Browning's Artemis, 
embraced all creatures of land and sea during their earthly 
existence, and later became their ruler in the underworld. 
For representations of her on clay impressions of intaglio 
gems from both Crete and Mycenae show her crowned 
with doves, the emblems of heaven, while primitive, rude 
terra-cotta idols from Gournia and Prinias, and the group 
of two polychrome faience figurines of advanced art, dis- 
covered at Cnossus in 1903, show her with snakes, the 
usual emblems of the underworld powers. In these 
statuettes, which probably were the furniture of a royal 
household shrine of the end of the Middle Minoan period 

360 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE 

(c. 1800-1600 B.C.), and which are among the most 
remarkable that archaeology has recovered from the pre- 
historic ^gean culture, the Minoan artist, by delicate 
modelling and use of color, has represented the goddess 
in the characteristic Cretan fashion, with tight bodice, 
low neck, short sleeves and well-shaped, full-flounced 
skirt. She holds at arms' length writhing, twisted snakes ; 
a spotted serpent curls round the high headdress of one 
figure, while a spotted cat is seated above a wreath on 
the head of the other. In general, the Cretan deity 
appears in beneficent guise ; but sometimes she has a more 
fearful aspect, as on a certain seal impression from Cnos- 
sus, where she is represented as standing on a cairn of 
stones with hair dishevelled and fierce gaze, accompanied 
by rampant lionesses. It has generally been assumed that 
when the later Greeks found this divinity in possession 
of the island, they identified her, in the various aspects 
of her many-sided nature, with various deities of their 
pantheon — not only with Rhea, the mother of the gods, 
who fled to Crete to bear her son Zeus, but with Artemis 
as " Lady of the Wilds," with Aphrodite and her doves, 
with Hera, Demeter, Athena and others. Perhaps a more 
rational interpretation is the recent one of H. R. Hall, 
who believes that the various forms under which she is 
depicted in art are really different deities of a Cretan 
pantheon, and that even if these forms are to be explained 
as those of one goddess, they were popularly regarded as 
distinct divinities.^ 

This mother-goddess was associated with a satellite 
male god, who is represented on gems and frescoes as an 
armed youth with spear and shield. No idol of this god, 
who was evidently the only male deity worshiped by the 
Minoans, has been found. When the Cretans went north, 
the Hellenic Zeus best corresponded to this god, and when 
the Achaean and Dorians came to Crete, this native war- 

*Mgean Archeology, 1915, pp. 149 ff. 

261 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

rior god Velchanos, as the only representative of the male 
godhead, was easily identified with their Zeus. It is not 
difficult for us to distinguish between the Aryan Zeus of 
the Greeks, the Father-God ruling from Olympus, and 
this Mediterranean Zeus of Crete. The legend of the 
youth of Velchanos — how he was suckled in the Dictaean 
cave by the goat Amalthea, while the Kouretes danced 
around his cradle and lulled him to sleep with martial 
clash of spear and shield, and how he was brought up by 
Rhea on Mount Ida — was easily appropriated by the 
Olympian Zeus, while many others, like the un-Greek 
legend of his death, were preserved by his Minoan counter- 
part. One can also see something of Apollo in Vel- 
chanos, which harmonizes with the tradition that the oracle 
and worship of Apollo at Delphi came from Crete. 

We know something of the ritual of this early cult. 
Scenes representing worshipers or priestesses in various 
attitudes of adoration, pouring libations, sacrificing and 
playing upon musical instruments, are common. Though 
images of the mother-goddess were known apparently 
from the earliest times — as idols of steatite just sug- 
gesting the human form have been found in the neolithic 
deposits at Cnossus — the chief cult objects were taken 
from the natural world, especially stones, trees and pil- 
lars, the fetish forms of the original divine mountain — 
the cone-shaped Mount luktas, south of Cnossus, which 
seems to have been sacred from the beginning, and which 
in course of time gave birth both in Crete and on the 
mainland of Greece to altars and statues. Sacred pillars 
with nothing to uphold are common objects of worship 
to the end of Minoan times. 

Intimately associated with the ^gean deities was the 
national emblem known as the '' Double Axe,'' which 
appears everywhere as a hieroglyph on altars and pillars, 
while great quantities of bronze axes, full-sized and mini- 
ature, were found in the cave of Dicte. the legendary 

262 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE 

birthplace of the Cretan Zeus. Thus it is carved thirty 
times on two small pillars of one room of the palace at 
Phaestos, and in a small chapel at Cnossus it was found be- 
tween the bull " horns of consecration." A complete scene 
of worship, in which a sacrifice is taking place before the 
" Double Axe," is seen on a late painted sarcophagus from 
Hagia Triada, and it appears as the central object of a cult 
scene on a painted clay coffin from Palaecastro. This em- 
blem has generally been looked upon as the fetish form of 
the associated goddess and god, who were supposed to 
form what Hogarth calls a " dual monotheism." Though 
evidence of its cult use is overwhelming, it also appears 
where no religious significance can be proven. Perhaps 
at first the axe was merely a tool or weapon typifying 
human strength; later, by an easy transition, it came to 
typify divine power. Plutarch says the " Double Axe " 
was a royal emblem of Lydia down to the seventh century 
B.C. Apart from its religious connection in Minoan art, 
therefore, it may also be the blazon of royalty. Its native 
name, labrys, was the special emblem of the Carian Zeus 
at Labrandea, a fact which may point to its having been 
in Crete the emblem of the god and not of the goddess. 
It may be the original of the Latin laharum, the Roman 
military standard upon which Constantine in 312 a.d. 
placed the cross and which he carried before his armies. 
Already on philological grounds it had been suggested 
that the Greek word Labyrinthos was derived from labrys. 
The discovery that the great foundation at Cnossus was 
both a palace and a sanctuary of the " Double Axe*' seems 
to confirm this view, and we may now recognize in this 
huge building, which covers four acres of ground and 
contains vast mazes of rooms, baths, winding corridors 
and subterranean passages, all grouped around open 
courts, the famous Labyrinth of Greek tradition. 

Among other sacred objects discovered was a marble 
cross of equal limbs found in a repository of the Great 

263 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

Palace at Cnossus, which Dr. Evans believes may have 
been the central object of worship in the Cretan cult. This 
discovery shows that a cross of orthodox Greek form was 
an object of worship centuries before Christianity. It 
may also help to explain why the Greek Church has always 
preferred this to the Latin form of the cross. Similarly 
the Svastika, the common emblem sculptured on Buddhist 
monuments of India and China and known in prehistoric 
Europe, was discovered in great numbers by Schliemann 
at Troy and elsewhere in Mycenaean strata. Like the cross, 
it never appears in classical Greece, but reappears in the 
Christian period in the catacombs of Rome and on funeral 
stelae of Asia Minor. 

The bull was the emblem of Velchanos and was the 
chief victim of sacrifice. Like the elephant of Siam, he 
was both royal and sacred ; his actual horns or clay copies 
of them adorned altars and shrines, and almost every 
religious scene on gems and frescoes that has been dis- 
covered. These were doubtless fetish objects, conven- 
tional reductions of the bull's head, which, in turn, was a 
convention for the whole animal. Bull's blood was 
poured in libation from vessels fashioned in the shape 
of his head, and goldsmiths fashioned great heads of 
the animal, like the well-known silver one with a golden 
rosette on its forehead, found at Mycenae. The sport of 
leaping over bulls, pictured in the frescoes from both 
Crete and South Greece, was doubtless connected with 
the worship of the god. Besides the bull there were many 
other sacred animals depicted in Minoan art — serpents, 
doves, lions, goats. It also pictured monsters, such as 
the Minotaur, griffins, sphinxes, lion-headed demons and 
human figures with lions' and asses' heads. Minoan re- 
ligion appears to have been weird, perhaps weirder than 
the mysteries of Egyptian worship. On intaglios from 
Zakro we see an extraordinary medley of queer animals — 

364 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE 

butterfly-winged sphinxes, stag-headed women, antlered 
men and other such combinations. 

A larger view of the significance of this Minoan- 
Mycenaean religion shows that in many of its funda- 
mentals it had its counterpart among many of the early 
peoples who bordered the Mediterranean. A great 
Nature-goddess with a subordinate youthful god com- 
panion — who was sometimes conceived as both husband 
and son — appears in Carthaginian Africa as Tanit and 
her son, in Egypt as Isis and Horus, in Phoenicia as Ash- 
tart and Tammuz or Adonis, in Asia Minor as Cybele 
and Attis, and in Greece in the old legend of Rhea and 
Zeus. Though a virgin, she is generally looked upon 
as the mother, by immaculate conception, of her com- 
panion, and later by him of all gods and all life. She 
is the spirit of nature; her son dies and she renews her- 
self by continued offspring. Similarly the ^gean ritual 
and cult are paralleled among all early nations. The 
indwelling of a deity in stones and trees and pillars is 
characteristic of an early stage of development every- 
where. The Canaanite Ashtart, the female counterpart 
.of Baal, was often adored under the symbol of a tree — 
the asherah or " grove " denounced in the Old Testa- 
ment. The Greeks of Delphi, still in the second century 
A.D., poured oil each day on an unwrought stone and 
placed unspun wool upon it in times of festival. When 
Jacob, the ancestor of the Israelites, fell asleep and 
dreamed of a ladder between earth and heaven, with its 
angels ascending and descending, he set up his pillow 
stone " for a pillar and poured oil upon the top of it" 
and called the place Beth-El, literally the House of God. 
A Greek legend makes Cronus swallow a sacred stone 
or bcptylos in the belief that it was his son Zeus. It seems 
clear that this Greek word is derived from the Semitic 
heth-el, through a Phoenician form hait-ul. The use 
of weapons, like the " Double Axe," existed among the 

265 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

Hittites. The bull's " horns of consecration " appear in 
early Hebrew ritual as the " horns of the altar." Belief 
in sacred animals is common to all primitive peoples and 
survived down into historic Greece. The serpent, as the 
embodiment of the powers of the underworld, was com- 
mon to Egypt and Greece. Perhaps the serpents of the 
snake-goddesses may have had something to do with 
household worship, like the household snakes of later 
Rome. The dove is both Semitic and Christian; lion- 
esses were Cybele's guardians ; the bull was the dwelling 
of divinity in Egyptian Memphis and was common in 
early Greek cult ; the goat was a sacred animal until late 
days in Asia Minor. Monsters, like those depicted on 
Minoan cult-scenes, were common in Egypt, and even in 
historic days in Greece a horse-headed Demeter was wor- 
shiped in Arcadia and a ram-headed Apollo in Laconia. 
When we turn to an account of the development of 
religion on the mainland of Greece, the question arises 
as to what influence the ^gean religion centring in 
Crete exerted on it. The influence of the later periods of 
Crete on Greece, reflected in the Greek belief that Crete 
was the cradle of its law, art and religion, must have 
been immense. But it would be unreasonable to follow 
Gruppe in his belief that Crete was the main source of 
early Greek religion, unless we could prove at the same 
time that it was also the source of all other phases of 
Greek civilization. We must rather, therefore, look upon 
the early religion of the Mediterranean mainland as a 
more or less independent development of the same ^gean 
product, which grew up under different conditions in 
Crete. A good deal of this difference can be explained 
by the different social structure of Greece, with its City- 
State, and of Crete, with its Sea-Empire. Crete, though 
herself influenced for centuries by Egypt and the East, 
could have influenced the cult of the mainland but little 
before the latest period of her life, when the hegemony 

266 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE 

was transferred from Cnossus to Mycenae. We know that 
the Hellenic invaders of Greece found a dominant god- 
dess cult similar to that of Crete in many places on the 
mainland — its portion of the common ^gean tradition. 
The American excavations at the Heraeum near Argos 
have shown that a powerful goddess was worshiped there 
long before the Hellenes came. At Olympia Hera was 
worshiped for centuries before Zeus. At Dodona in 
Epirus Zeus and Dione appear to have succeeded an older 
pair of powers whose presence was recognized in the 
springs and oak forests and who were probably resorted 
to for omens. Wherever, then, we find in Greece a god- 
dess cult, especially that of a virgin goddess, we are 
generally safe in recognizing the earlier Mediterranean 
tradition in antagonism to the later Aryan, which in- 
variably gave preeminence to the male god. Thus the 
cults of Artemis in Attica and Arcadia, of Athena in 
Attica, of Hera in Samos, Argos and Olympia, were sur- 
vivals of an earlier period. However, this is not a fixed 
phenomenon in early Greek religion, for we cannot always 
assume a non-Hellenic divinity where we find a dominant 
goddess cult. Nothing, for example, is more Aryan than 
the cult of Demeter at Eleusis, and we know that many 
Aryan religions gave prominence to an earth-goddess. 

THE PREHISTORIC RELIGION OF THE MAINLAND OF GREECE 

Let US rapidly survey the early religious development 
of the mainland and distinguish the component factors 
which went to make what we historically call Greek re- 
ligion. Here the evidence is not wholly archaeological, 
as in the case of Crete, for we also have the help of 
philology and literature to guide us. Ethnology has 
proven nothin^^ more conclusively than the fact that the 
race we call Greek was, like others great in history, the 
product of a blend of populations — conquering Aryan 
tribes from central Europe, the Hellenes or Eurasians 

267 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

or Nordics of ethnology', settling among the indigenous 
stocks, the Eurafricans or Mediterraneans of whom we 
have been speaking. We must conclude, then, that the re- 
ligion of historic Greece was likewise a product of a blend 
of early Indo-European or Aryan beliefs with the older 
cult ideas and practices of these peoples. These two 
sources continued interwoven all through the history of 
Greek religion and are discernible in the later strata of 
both theology and ritual. To disentangle them is the first 
problem for the historian of Greek religion. The problem 
is to find out what the tall, fair-haired, round-headed 
northerners found indigenous in the lands they conquered, 
before we can say what part of the historic religion was 
Aryan. It is a very difficult problem and we can do little 
more than distinguish lower from higher forms in the 
developed religion and, generally speaking, look upon the 
former as survivals of an earlier animistic past, rather 
than explain them as having grown up spontaneously in 
later days, when civic and social life was in an advanced 
stage. Most of these cruder beliefs and practices were, 
of course, gradually abandoned in the presence of the 
later, higher forms, but others were tolerated to the end 
of paganism. A good deal of such persistent conserva- 
tism in the Greek record must be laid to the door of 
nothing else than inertia. It was often easier to keep 
the old forms side by side with developed ones than to get 
rid of them. 

In many ways the early animistic stage of Greek re- 
ligion is characteristically Greek, while in others it is 
typical of a similar stage of thought everywhere. Thus 
we may call it the normal beginning of all religions, the 
raw material — to use the phrase of Gilbert Murray — out 
of which they are made. The German scholar Preuss has 
applied to it the expressive term " Urdummheit " or " Pri- 
mal Stupidity." In Greece this prehistoric stage is both 
repulsive and attractive. We can see how crude notions 

268 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE 

slowly were either gotten rid of or at last transformed 
into things of beauty. 

In treating this early stage, it has been the habit until 
recently to look upon the poems of Homer as primitive 
and thus to start with the idea of gods. Whenever we 
speak of Greek mythology, we inevitably think of Homer's 
man-gods — of Zeus with his thunderbolt, father of gods 
and men, of Hera, his turbulent queen, of Poseidon with 
his trident, the lord of the sea, of Athena and her panoply 
of arms. Greek literature, vase paintings and sculpture 
are all dominated by this idea of anthropomorphism, the 
strongest trend in Greek religion ; we, sharing the similar 
mistake of the classical Greeks, think of these gods as 
magnified humans. Homer's gods are not vague numina, 
as the old Roman divinities were in the main, dimly out- 
lined, animate though scarcely personal; they are con- 
crete individuals correlated into a hierarchy organized 
under a supreme god. In other words, the poets of the 
Iliad and Odyssey do not give us a picture of primitive 
religion at all, but of an advanced polytheism. If we con- 
sider how slow of growth religious ideas are, we see they 
must have inherited an age-long tradition of polytheism 
and we must, therefore, assume a long evolution which 
ended in humanly conceived deities. Just how these gods 
were evolved is a question which has been much dis- 
cussed. Older critics contended, for instance, that the 
Aryan Sky-god, common to the Vedic Hindoos, the 
Greeks and the Romans, was brought into the Balkan 
peninsula and split up into the countless forms under 
which Zeus was worshiped in every hamlet. More scien- 
tific scholars, like Eduard Meyer,^ believe the process was 
just the opposite, one of " condensation " rather than 
expansion. Thus similar gods worshiped by different 
groups would gradually merge into one ; each cult would 
emphasize its own Zeus in accordance with its influence, 

^Geschichfe des Alfertums I!, 96. 

269 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

but, on the other hand, the character of Zeus would be 
modified by the general Greek conception. The long 
accepted belief that the unity of Zeus was original and 
the variety of local Zeuses was accidental is opposed to 
the historical fact that the unity of the Greek people was 
the result of development. Probably Zeus and Poseidon 
and all the other gods of the later Epic were merely 
" composite photographs" of many earlier Zeuses and 
Poseidons. The Epic poets finally unified and standard- 
ized the earlier concepts and, putting an end to the primi- 
tive vagueness, created a universal Hellenic religion. 
It is only in this sense that we understand the statement 
of Herodotus that Homer and Hesiod framed the theog- 
ony of the Greeks, giving to the gods their names and 
powers and forms. Even if we assume that the appear- 
ance of personal gods is a very early fact in religious de- 
velopment, still the idea of gods dwelling far away in 
the sky like Homer's Olympians is by no means an easy 
one for primitive peoples to grasp, while the idea of 
their omnipotence and omnipresence simply transcends the 
barriers of all local religions. One of the world's greatest 
religions has dispensed with the idea of God altogether 
and yet has risen to great heights of moral and intel- 
lectual power. Such a development is, of course, ex- 
ceptional, for even the most primitive peoples regularly 
evolve gods with " body, parts and passions " ; in the 
higher stage of religions, even if the gods do not have the 
bodies of men, they are sure to have their mental attri- 
butes. 

THE ORIGIN OF THE GREEK GODS 

If Homer and Hesiod, then, in no sense created the 
theogony of the Greeks, how did the gods originate? 
Herodotus tells us that a people, whom he calls Pelasgians, 
once inhabited Greece long before Homer and that at 
their sacrifices, though they called on theoi *' gods," these 

270 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE 

gods had neither names nor titles. This means that there 
was a time in Greece, as everywhere else in the ^gean 
area, when men of Mediterranean stock, the Pelasgiatis 
of Herodotus, the Eurafricans of modern ethnology, 
worshiped unindividualized powers. These "gods" were 
things and not persons, a statement borne out by Plato, 
who says that the earliest Greeks, like other barbarians, 
worshiped the sun, moon, stars, heaven and earth. These 
theoi were the germs of the later gods whom we meet in 
Homer. The Mediterraneans of the mainland were sim- 
ply more backward than their brothers of Crete and ap- 
pear to have evolved anthropomorphic personal gods at 
a much later time. That Herodotus was right in his 
statement about the origin of the Greek gods is borne 
out both by comparative religion and archaeology. 

The comparative study of religions shows us that 
everywhere men do not at first attribute personality to the 
things they worship, but that this is an idea saturated 
with ages of reflection. Long before gods are clothed 
with animal or human forms is the stage of religious 
development known as animism, when gods are intangible 
things dwelling everywhere in nature — in stones, rocks, 
trees, rivers. Thus the early inhabitants of Greece, 
living in a region of great beauty and variety, were led 
to sympathize strongly with the material world about 
them and saw agencies full of energy in every object. 
In this way they gave a soul and will to the all-nourishing 
earth, the benevolent sun, the restless sea, the whispering 
wind and irresistible storm. Everything that moved or 
grew seemed to them to be full of life. In course of time, 
instead of continuing to deify these things, they tried to 
set a personal god above them, who directs them. At first 
they conceived these spirits as animals, like Apollo's 
Pegasus, who caused the fountain of Hippocrene to gush 
forth on the top of Helicon by the blow of his hoof; 
later they imagined them as men, or men and animals 

271 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

combined, like the River-gods, which were conceived as 
bulls with human heads, to typify the tremendous power 
of the onsweeping current and at the same time the in- 
genuity of mind which directs it. Thus the early Greeks 
peopled all nature with spirits — nymphs, dryads, satyrs, 
fauns, spirits of wood and mountain and river. Later on, 
in historical times, this process was helped by art and in 
the final stages included abstract ideas, as we hear of 
statues erected to such personifications as " Peace," 
" Concord " and " Mercy." As Reinach puts it, the 
Greeks, beginning with endowing all bodies with thought, 
ended by endowing all thoughts with body. Such animis- 
tic notions survived into the latest days. Certain of the 
Arcadians, for example, who were always more backward 
than the rest of the Greeks, sacrificed at Trapezus still 
in the second century of our era to " lightning, thunder 
and hurricanes," as if to live beings. The cult of Hestia 
is perhaps the best example. Originally Hestia meant 
simply '' Holy Hearth " and to the end of polytheism 
never became a separate personality. These animistic 
notions in historical days became transformed by the 
imagination of poets into the beautiful stories which have 
colored all modern literatures. 

Fetishism grew out of animism — the superstitious 
use of objects invested with mysterious potency, either 
for protective magic or higher communion with a deity. 
From the earlier ^gean days down to our time this has 
been an important factor in the religion of the Graeco- 
Roman world. I have already spoken of the " bsetylic " 
cult of sacred stones and pillars in the Minoan-Mycensean 
period. In Greece such rude pillars survived to the latest 
days side by side with masterpieces of sculpture. Pau- 
sanias, a Greek who travelled over the mainland in the 
age of the Antonines, and who has left us an invaluable 
record of religious customs, mentions several. Thus at 
Pharse, a town of Achaea, he records an image of Hermes, 

272 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE 

which was nothing but a square block surmounted by a 
bearded head. He says that thirty square stones revered 
as gods stood near it, and adds that in ancient days all 
the Greeks worshiped such unwrought stones. He also 
says that the images in an old shrine of the Graces were 
meteoric stones, as also one of Eros at Thespiae. Now 
the square herm at Pharae was merely a step in advance 
over these unwrought stones. Hermes, who appears in 
Homer as a beautiful messenger with golden rod and 
winged sandals, was, therefore, originally only a boundary 
stone. Thus there can be no doubt of his Mediterranean 
origin in herm form, just as there is none concerning 
that of the Graces and many other divinities. In the 
earliest days, then, in Pelasgian Arcadia and elsewhere, 
tree trunks, unwrought stones and limbless pillars were 
objects of worship just as they were in Crete. Though 
the trees are gone, some of the pillars have survived and 
we can see them both at Cnossus and Mycenae. The 
best example of such a pillar on the mainland is the 
famous " Lion Gate " of Mycenae. There on the pedi- 
ment over the gate is a Doric column, resting on an altar- 
like base, with a lion on either side. This is not a '' Lion 
Gate " at all, but a pillar shrine guarded by lions ; the 
pillar is a god and has a peculiar shape, tapering down- 
wards like the human form. The same pillar has come to 
life in a seal impression found at Cnossus; for here it 
has become a goddess standing on a cairn of stones, who 
is guarded by lionesses. The undifferentiated Pelasgian 
god has already developed in Crete personality and sex. 
Probably all such early anthropomorphized images — long 
existent in Crete but just emerging in the Greece of 
Homer's time — were evolved like this Cnossian " Lion 
Goddess," from just such upright sacred columns as 
that of Mycenae. And doubtless the tree preceded the 
pillar. 

i8 273 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

PRIMITIVE PELASGIAN BELIEFS AND PRACTICES 

We can recover something of the Pelasgian, i.e., 
^gean ritual as it was practiced in Greece. The Homeric 
ritual of sacrifice was simple and uniform, consisting of 
prayer, the sprinkling of grain and a burnt offering; a 
part of the flesh of the victim was tasted by the wor- 
shipers and then given to- the gods, sublimated by fire in 
order to reach them, and the rest was eaten at a banquet 
with wine. This ritual is not essentially Greek nor even 
Aryan. We find that Jahweh enjoys burnt sacrifices and 
that his worshipers have a sacrificial feast. There was also 
a different ritual, one in honor of the powers of the 
underworld, i.e., to dead men or heroes. Pausanias tells 
us of it and shows us that the dead required all the 
sacrificial animal and the worshipers were not allowed 
even to taste it. The victim was slain over a trench with 
his head downward, just as Odysseus sacrifices in the 
Odyssey before he descends into Hell. In the Olympian 
sacrifice, on the contrary, the head was always turned 
upward. Where rites were performed to both heroes and 
Olympians, the former, as we learn from Pausanias's 
account of the change in ritual at the sacrifice to Heracles 
at Sicyon from hero to god, were older and went back 
to the Mediterranean stratum, the Olympian replacing 
the hero rites later. Thus the two rituals often, as at 
Sicyon, came into conflict, the Olympian ousting the 
earlier. 

The hero cult at the tomb presupposed that the dead 
man's spirit was hovering nearby ready to be appeased. 
Wherever the dead are buried, such a belief in the world 
of ghosts is sure to be found. The dead man becomes a 
sort of god to whom his descendants sacrifice. Now the 
invading Hellenes did not bury their dead, but burnt 
them: consequently the spirit did not hover about the 
tomb, but fled to some faraway place, as the soul of 
Patroclus does in the Iliad, where it could exert no influ- 

274 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE 

ence on the living. The custom of cremation came with 
the invaders from Central Europe, where their ancestors 
were accustomed to great forests for use in building 
funeral pyres. Thus Tacitus tells us that the ancient 
Germans burned their chiefs. In this way the survivors 
were freed from the greatest fear which haunts primitive 
men — the fear of the ghost- world. Mycenaean tombs, on 
rthe other hand, show that the Mediterraneans buried their 
dead. Many objects found in them — arms, ornaments 
and the usual funeral furniture — supplied the dead with 
things which belonged to them on earth and prove that 
the Mycenaean Greeks believed in an after-life. But 
even at Mycenae there seems to be no evidence of a large 
ghost element such as we find in Egypt and Babylon and 
even in Christianity. Perhaps the prehistoric Greek was 
worse off in this respect than his successor, the classical 
Greek, but even so he seems to have worried little about 
his future. Most of the early terror inspired by the 
powers of the lower world fortunately later was changed 
into the action of the benign functions of vegetation gods 
or else faded away, surviving only here and there in 
folk-lore. 

The ghost of a murdered man, according to the Greek 
view of homicide, still held in ^schylus's day, became an 
embodied curse, personified as a Fury, and continued to 
haunt the murderer to the end of his life. The blood 
of the slain man caused a pollution which, according to 
the old lex talioms, could only be expelled by the blood of 
his murderer. But such an idea of an unending feud 
is not Homeric. The Epic Achaeans, like the old Germans, 
believed that atonement could be made by the payment of 
blood money — wergeld. Thus, in this respect, also, the 
Homeric and the Pelasgian ideas were opposed. There 
are also evidences in this older ritual of a more sombre 
side — ^human sacrifice and blood magic. Though the facts 
about human sacrifice are not yet fully explained, we 

275 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

know it existed in Mediterranean times in Greece, if not 
in Crete, and it is equally certain that survivals of it re- 
mained into historical days. In Mycenaean graves human 
bones have been found at the doorways. Whether they 
symbolize an act of worship or merely imply rites of 
tendance, a feeling that the dead needed companions on 
their journey below, is of little consequence; for in any 
case they must be the remains of slain captives or slaves. 
By Homer's time a change had begun, for the poet blames 
Achilles for his cruelty in slaying Trojan captives at 
the grave of Patroclus. Encouraged once by the Delphic 
oracle, by the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. the custom 
had become rare and repellent, as we see from the Platonic 
dialogue Minos, where Greeks and barbarians are con- 
trasted in this respect. Still it was kept up in the ghastly 
rites of Zeus Lycseus in Arcadia and in the barbarous 
sacrament of Zeus Laphystius in Bceotia and Thessaly. 
Euripides, in his drama Iphigenia among the Taurians, 
attests that a similar sacrifice existed in Brauron in Attica 
before his day. The Locrian sacrifice of maidens to 
appease Athena Ilias had fallen into disuse by the fourth 
century B.C. The inhuman custom was continued in cer- 
tain parts of the Roman Empire down to Hadrian's day. 
Generally such rites were piacular, the sacrifice to an 
offended god being a scapegoat for the life of the whole 
people as a vicarious offering; again it was agricultural 
in motive, blood being shed as a form of magic to pro- 
mote fertility. 

Though Homer says nothing about magical rites, we 
know how primitive they are. The old cult of sacred 
stones taught that such objects had magical powers to cure 
diseases and purge homicides of guilt. Certain statues of 
Olympic victors of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C., 
like those O'f the Thasian Theagenes and the Thessalian 
Polydamus, were supposed to heal fevers. Many a Greek 
myth is the child of naagic. Thus Danae is not to be 

276 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE 

explained as an allegory meaning that '* gold opens all 
doors," but merely as a golden rain with which Zeus visits 
Earth. The Thesmophoria — one of the oldest festivals 
at Athens — was still in historical days largely concerned 
with magical rites aimed at increasing fertility, such as 
strewing the fields with the remains of pigs consecrated 
to the goddesses of earth. The Thargelia, another Athen- 
ian festival, was concerned with the scapegoat, with a 
ritualistic scourging and transference of sin. All such 
phenomena are magical. Certain Athenian officials in 
historical times were called " Windlullers," because they 
had magical powers to lull the winds to sleep. In the fifth 
century B.C. the efficacy of magic was recognized by law. 
Thus a Tean inscription gives a law which threatens 
those w^ho used magic against individuals or state. This 
" black " magic was still practised in Pausanias's day at 
Haliartus, in Boeotia, and it was probably a lineal de- 
scendant of Mediterranean magic. Plato, in his last work, 
the Laws, is not certain whether he believes in the efficacy 
of magic or not. Despite all this and similar evi- 
dence it may be said that magic was never so prevalent 
in Greece as in Mesopotamia and Egypt, and that what 
did exist was generally beneficent in character and its 
ceremonies were refined. 

We see, then, that there are not only two strata of 
theology in the historic religion of Greece, but two of 
ritual : an upper stratum, belonging to the Olympian sys- 
tem, which had little notion of the ghost- world, placation 
of the angry dead nor magical rites of purification — in 
short, no ceremonies of " aversion " or riddance, and a 
lower stratum of the indigenous Southerners which in- 
cluded elements common to the ^gean and early Eastern 
religions, stone, pillar and tree worship, belief in the 
world of spirits and the efficacy of magic. Many other 
crude, though harmless, survivals of this later stratum 
might be mentioned, such as the sacrifice known as the 

277 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

Buphonia, kept up to a late period at the altar of Zeus 
Polieus on the Acropolis, which was a medley of magical 
rites; or the court held at the Prytaneum in Athens, at 
which animals and lifeless things were tried, condemned 
and punished, a court having its origin in the dim ani- 
mistic past and still flourishing in the time of Demosthenes 
and surviving for centuries later. 

ORIENTAL INFLUENCES ON EARLY GREEK RELIGION 

We have seen, then, that within its own limits the 
early Mediterranean religion had begun even on the 
mainland of Greece to give form and personality to its 
undifferentiated gods. But we are still a long way from 
Homer's gods. It was not the Epic poets who completed 
the work of differentiation. The process was helped on 
by another factor — the second in the makeup of Greek 
religion — influences from the Oriental nations. The 
priestesses of Zeus at Dodona, the oldest Greek oracle, 
told Herodotus that the Pelasgians in course of time 
adopted the names of their theoi from Egypt and the 
credulous historian believed that the names of all the 
Greek gods, with few exceptions, had always existed in 
Egypt. Many modem scholars, like Foucart, have over- 
estimated this Egyptian influence on the early religion of 
Greece. The truth is that the early Greeks were influ- 
enced by religious ideas not only from Egypt but from 
the whole East. Many Greek legends, like those of lo, 
Danaus and Cadmus, tell us of this Eastern influence, 
and the later world of the Iliad and Odyssey was touched 
at every point by the South — Crete, Egypt and Libya, 
and by the East — Phoenicia, Syria and Asia Minor. The 
recent excavations in Egypt and on the prehistoric sites 
of the ^gean area have shown that this contact was far 
older than Homer. The pre-Hellenic civilization was 
saturated with Oriental influences. Flinders Petrie, in 
1887, discovered at Kahun in Middle Egypt foreign pot- 

278 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE 

tery which he called ^gean, and later discoveries in Crete 
showed that he was right. This pottery, found in deposits 
of the XII and XIII dynasties (before 1800 to about 
1700 B.C.), is of the type known as Kamarais ware and 
belongs to the Middle Minoan period of Crete. Again, 
in 1899, the same archaeologist found at Tell-el-Amarna 
in Egypt, in deposits of the early fourteenth century b.c, 
many fragments of Mycenaean pottery. Mycenaean vases 
were also found in Phoenician Sidon in 1885, and later 
the tombs of Enkomi in Cyprus disclosed articles of 
Mycenaean art of the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries 
B.C. On the beautiful inlaid sword blades from the shaft 
graves of Mycenae Egyptian animals are represented — 
ichneumons — commonly known as Pharaoh's rats — hunt- 
ing duck. Conversely, vases from Mycenae have been 
found in Egypt, Phoenicia and Cyprus. Thus we see that 
if the Pelasgians did not borrow, it was not from a lack 
of opportunity; the wonder is that all this foreign influ- 
ence was not too great for them to assimilate. 

THE HELLENIC INVASION 

Before reaching Homer's pantheon, a third and last 
step must be noted in the prehistoric development of 
Greek religion. This Mediterranean religion, after de- 
veloping from within and assimilating foreign influences 
for centuries, was finally taken over by the Hellenic in- 
vaders, and the resultant union of religious beliefs and 
practices formed what we call the historic religion of 
Greece. Who these Hellenes were and when they estab- 
lished themselves in the Balkans has given rise to endless 
discussion. For many reasons it is certain they came 
from the North, being gradually pushed southward by 
successive waves of migration of Indo-European tribes 
from the Danube valley. When they first appeared in 
Greece we cannot definitely say, as tradition preserves 
no memory of the movement. The first migration seems 

279 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

to have been followed, after an interval of some centuries, 
by a second, which came by way of the Northwest, to 
which many traditions bear witness. These Dorians, as 
we call them, instead of dispossessing their predecessors, 
passed straight on across Central Greece and the Corin- 
thian Gulf into the Peloponnesus, where, blending with 
the Mediterraneans, they formed the bulk of the later 
Greek population in the peninsula ; thence they passed on 
into Crete, the isles of the Archipelago and south- 
eastern Asia Minor. This later movement took place not 
later than the twelfth century. Whether the walls, palaces 
and tombs of Argos, Tiryns and Mycenae were built by 
them or wrested from the earlier peoples is not important, 
for the civilization which they reflect was certainly not 
Hellenic. The Greek historians Herodotus and Thucyd- 
ides were both aware of the fact that these Hellenes 
were late-comers into Greece. The latter says that they, 
rather than the Pelasgians, were the leaders of the war- 
riors against Troy, the first collective enterprise which 
gave unity to Greece, and that the Greeks owed to this 
unity their Pantheon and differentiated gods. Long ago 
Gladstone remarked on the analogies between the Achaeans 
of Homer and the Germans of Tacitus — their tall stature, 
fair hair and blue eyes. Ridgeway, Hall and many other 
more scientific scholars have since shown that the Achaeans 
of Homer differed also in many essentials of their material 
culture — in their armor, dress and customs of burial — 
from the Mycenaean Mediterraneans, but agreed with that 
of the northern barbarians of Central Europe. The Hel- 
lenes, then, were merely a branch of those northerners 
who, as Dorians or later Gauls, have repeatedly invaded 
the south and blended with the indigenous peoples. 

Miss Harrison professes to see the atmosphere of the 
Norse Eddas in Homer's Olympians. They are often 
depicted as big and turbulent because they are, in part, 
northern gods, and size and excess are Teutonic rather 

280 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE 

than Greek characteristics. Thus Poseidon, the Earth- 
shaker, goes into battle on the plains of Ilium shouting as 
" loud as nine or ten thousand men shout in battle," and 
this cry '' puts strength into the Achaeans' hearts." Just 
so Tacitus was surprised at the *' harsh note and con- 
fused roar " of the German warriors, which was " not 
so much an articulate sound as a general cry of valor " 
(Germania, iii). The same god takes three strides from 
Samothrace and with the fourth is in ^Egse of Achaea — 
surely the stride of a northern giant. The brutal rage 
of Zeus is northern, as when he " wills to dash the other 
gods from their seats" (II. i, 580-1), or when he 
'' caught his son by the foot and hurled him from the 
divine threshold of Olympus " (II. i, 591). Zeus " beats 
his wife with stripes and hangs her up with anvils to 
her feet" (II. xv, 17 seq.) — a scene which immediately 
suggests the well-known plight of Gunther on his wedding 
night in the Song of the Nibelungs. Zeus tells Hera she 
is so vengeful that " she would like to eat Priam alive " 
(II. iv, 34). But, as Miss Harrison says, such is the 
magic of Homer's verse that we forget these are not the 
ways of Greek gods. Homer's gods are simply, in the 
main, foreigners ; they make no claim to having created 
the world like other gods have done, but only to have 
conquered it. They are royal robbers, who attend neither 
to agriculture nor government, but fill their time with 
feasting and fighting, with love-making and intrigue. 

Long before history began, then, these factors, primi- 
tive Pelasgian beliefs, Oriental influences, and after mil- 
lennia, it may be, of this fusion, successive impulses from 
the north, were transformed by the Epic poets into the 
Olympian system. With the Homeric age the fusion was 
complete and the Greek religious spirit had acquired its 
characteristic trend. The poets gathered the mountain 
gods of the Hellenic invaders into a family on Olympus, 
their old sacred hill. The gods were called Olympian 

281 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

from this mountain and from Olympia in Elis, where the 
greatest of them had his greatest festival, two places at 
opposite ends of Greece, showing the Hellenic migrations 
southward — migrations which are proven by history and 
dialect. For a long time we believed they were primi- 
tive ; their bright forms dazzled us into believing that they 
had no background. We now know that centuries of de- 
velopment lay behind them, that they were late comers 
imposed on a very different background which has been 
disclosed to us by the kind of evidence we have outlined. 

THE HOMERIC POEMS AND THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM 

Under this title I shall not introduce you to the age-long 
Homeric question — the date and authorship of the Iliad and 
Odyssey. Suffice it to say that these incomparable poems are 
the meagre survivors of an immense Epic literature which 
slowly grew up in Greece and Ionia in the Heroic Age — 
a period roughly comprising the twelfth to the eighth 
centuries B.C., and that they reflect largely the tradition 
of the Hellenic invaders. Modem destructive criticism 
has doubted the existence of a poet named Homer and 
contents itself with the belief that the Epics which bear 
that name are, in their existing form, the product of 
various bards and ages, and that they received substan- 
tially their present form under Peisistratus, the tyrant of 
Athens, who, in the sixth pre-Christian century, had them 
arranged to be recited at the Panathenaic festival in 
Athens. 

Sir Gilbert Murray has shown that the Olympian re- 
ligion came to Greece as a sort of reformation, for with 
all its imperfections it brought a kind of order into the 
chaos of gods which had slowly evolved among the Medi- 
terranean inhabitants of the ^gean a^rea. The new sys- 
tem was patriarchal and monogamous in character; that 
of the ^geans and Hittites had been matrilinear and 
saturated with ideas of polygamy, sex-emblems and fer- 

282 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE 

tility rites and goddesses. It was also aristocratic, for 
the Homeric poems were the Hterature of the chieftains 
and consequently largely free of popular superstitions. 
However, in their present form they were never court 
poems, though they may have originated in lays sung by 
travelling bards in royal castles. Only in their latest 
strata do they show traces of earlier Mediterranean be- 
liefs — ancestor worship, propitiation of the dead and be- 
lief in the ghost world. In the main they were Ionian 
in origin and it was the progressive and sceptical lonians 
who were best fitted to lead in a reform against the older 
popular beliefs and practices. These lonians were de- 
scended from the men who had fled across the ^gean 
before the later Hellenes and they possessed the same 
spirit of freedom which the men of the Heroic Age had 
displayed. Surrounded by barbarous tribes of the interior 
of Asia Minor, they were the first to feel that they were 
Hellenes as opposed to barbarians, and, long before the 
greatness of Athens, had become the most cultured 
representatives of the Hellenic race. 

Whereas in most countries the oldest surviving litera- 
ture is religious in character — like the Hindu Vedas, col- 
lections of hymns to the gods for purposes of worship, 
or the Gathas of the Avesta, containing the utterances 
of the Iranian prophet — the Greek Epic was secular in 
origin. The old robber kings of the Heroic Age had 
had little interest in building up a powerful religion, but 
left this, like all honest work, to the common folk. Nor 
was it to be expected that the educated bards of Ionia, 
who sang of the glorious deeds of these kings long since 
passed away, should have added much religious sentiment 
to a system which they looked upon more as romance than 
religion. They had little faith or reverence for the 
Olympians and consequently the gods play a far more 
human role in the poems than that assigned to them by 
later Greek religion. The Ionian rhapsodes merely trans- 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

formed with their magic minstrelsy the kings and gods 
of the barbarous past and changed the old era of bru- 
tality into one of chivalrous adventure. Whatever was 
good in the old tradition was kept, while all the rest 
was either passed over or refined away. They tried to 
bring order into the old religious chaos and adapt it 
to a new social order. Though the Epic largely failed in 
its aims, the Olympian religion by looo b.c. had super- 
seded the Pelasgian at its ancient sacred centres — Delphi, 
Argos, Olympia — and was publicly professed. The poems, 
which at first had been composed for the amusement of 
the nobles, became in course of time the literature of the 
people, and were recited to the multitudes at the various 
festivals. The Olympian divinities, radiating especially 
from the recitation of the poems at the Panathenaic festi- 
val at Athens, became not only for the Athenians but for 
all the Greeks ideals of humanity and the foundation of 
the religion of the historical Greeks. 

Let us rapidly survey the chief characteristics of 
Homer's system. Though much of the picture is missing, 
still the poet gives us a fairly complete and consistent 
account of an advanced polytheism. The Olympians are 
sharply defined personalities, clear-cut individuals, colos- 
sal men and women, fairer and stronger than mortals, but 
still conceived in their glorified image. They are so 
humanly conceived that the later artist could embody in 
sculpture or painting ideas straight from Homer's de- 
scriptions. This is exemplified by the tradition handed 
down by Strabo that those well-known lines in the first 
book of the Iliad (528-30), which close the scene in 
which Thetis importunes Zeus in behalf of her son 
Achilles, suggested to Phidias the conception of his most 
famous work, the gold and ivory statue of the father of 
gods and men for the temple at Olympia : " He spake 
and with his steel-grey brows Cronus' son nodded assent, 

284 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE 

and the immortal locks fell waving from his divine head, 
and he shook mighty Olympus." 

These human gods are able to work wonders and to 
take on any shape they will. They dwell together on the 
lofty crowned Olympus in Thessaly and form a political 
community with its hierarchy of rank and duty, its con- 
tentions for honor and power, its occasional revolutions 
and political intrigues, its public meetings and festivals. 
In a word, life on Olympus is a magnified picture of life 
on earth. Though superhuman, they are like mortals in 
the ordinary necessities of life, requiring food and drink 
and sleep. The highest of them — Zeus, Apollo, Hera, 
Hermes, Athena — were not nature gods like the person- 
alities of the Vedas, bound up with the forces of the 
natural world. Apollo was not the Sun nor Athena the 
Sky, but they were beings with powers as real to the 
Greeks as Christ and Mary are to Christians. Even Zeus, 
though responsible for the phenomena of sky and air, was 
not the thunder nor the sky — even if a few indications 
point to the influence of earlier animistic conceptions of 
the divine sky. A few lesser divinities, like the gods of 
the winds and rivers, the nymphs and fauns, were pure 
nature powers and never became fully anthropomorphic. 
Thus Hestia, '' Holy Hearth," Helios the Sun, Selene 
the Moon, Gaea the Earth, never became fully personal, 
for these had their origin in the remote animistic period 
and survived to the latest times. Though animate, they 
had little religious value and exerted little influence on 
the moral, social and spiritual natures of the Greeks. 
Like mortals, the Olympians were subject to moral weak- 
ness and Olympus merely reflected earthly ethical notions. 
The Ionian bards did not always take them seriously, 
but often used them in their poetry for purposes of orna- 
ment, and, sometimes, as in the later strata of the Odys- 
sey, even for burlesque. They accorded little reverence 
to Zeus or Hera. Zens is as majestic as his thunder in 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

his celestial aspect, but is far below mortals when viewed 
as father and husband, while Hera is anything but a duti- 
ful consort. Ares is despised as a bloodthirsty Thracian 
coward, while Aphrodite is rebuked for joining in the 
fray of men. These two are the subjects of a very melo- 
dramatic scene in a famous passage of the Odyssey. In 
short, only three Olympians are respectfully handled — 
Apollo, Poseidon and Athena. Gladstone summed it up 
well by saying that none of Homer's gods was as good 
as the swineherd Eumaeus. 

The blend of the religious ideas of the northerners 
and southerners explains some of these incongruities. 
The nearer the Olympians approach to the old Mediter- 
ranean nature gods, the more reverend do they become. 
We laugh at the lame smith of the gods puffing and 
blowing through Olympus' halls, but we find Hephaestus, 
the old fire-god, in combat with the river-god Xanthus, 
a truly majestic figure. The greater the interference of 
the gods in the affairs of men, the later is the composi- 
tion. However, despite all the levity displayed in the 
poems, Homer's deeper utterances impute an advanced 
morality to the supreme god Zeus, who, though revengeful 
and jealous like Jahweh, is generally pictured as a god 
of righteousness and pity toward men. In the opening 
lines of the Odyssey he says it is not the gods but the 
wickedness of men's hearts which brings evil. He is the 
protector of the good and the punisher of the wicked; 
whoever neglects the prayers of the unfortunate or vio- 
lates the sanctity of suppliant or guest receives his recom- 
pense of punishment. There is even a glimmering in the 
poems of the dark powers of the underworld, which 
send forth the Erinyes to punish the perjurer. 

On the whole, then, the religious tone of Homer is 
in harmony with advanced notions of morality. The atmos 
phere of the poems is bright and cheerful, tHe service is 
beautiful though solemn with hymn and dance. The rela- 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE 

tionship existing between the gods and men is generally 
sociable. The ritual is simple and on a high plane of the- 
ism; it shows but little trace of savage rites and is far 
freer from magic than that of later ages. Sacrifice is a 
friendly communion with the god revealing a sense of sin 
and need of expiation. The favor of the Olympians, like 
that of northern gods, is gained by the offering of meat 
and wine. The cult has altars, temples, the beginning 
of priesthoods and even idols. 

THE HOMERIC HELL 

We modems have a feeling that religion ought to 
concern itself with the question of life after death. But 
the Homeric system, while telling us much of theology 
and ritual, gives us little notion of eschatology. The gods, 
to be sure, are immortal, but good men do not go to 
Olympus to live with them nor bad ones to Tartarus. 
If we except certain late additions to the poems, we find 
that these are little concerned with any concept of the 
soul-life after death, and that they show neither any 
cult of the dead nor need of propitiating them, though 
we know that the Mycenaean Greek had such beliefs and 
practices. The fear of the ghost world seems, for cer- 
tain reasons, to have grown strong in the seventh cen- 
tury, and we have a reflection of it in the later strata of 
the Odyssey, especially in the Nekyia or Descent of 
Odysseus into Hell in the eleventh book, and the scene 
copied from it at the opening of the last book, in which 
the wooers are escorted down the dank ways by Hermes. 
The Descent, the most striking episode of the Epic, seems 
to have little in common with the Olympian system, but 
rather, in the main, to be the recrudescence of older 
Pelasgian beliefs of the hereafter. Christ believes it was 
influenced by Egyptian ideas. The catalogue of famous 
women (xi, 225-332) is manifestly the composition of a 
bard of the Hesiodic School. The description of Hades 

287 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

Itself, which Odysseus, represented as still seated at the 
'trench without, could not have entered, and especially 
the picture of retributive punishment meted out by 
Minos to certain exemplary sinners — Tantalus, Sisyphus, 
Tityus (566-627) — are quite out of harmony with Hom- 
er's spirit and have been assigned by scholars to a late 
rhapsodist — perhaps to Onomacritus, the poet of Peisis- 
tratus's time, as Wilamowitz believes — who took the 
scenes from Orphism, the new religion which had de- 
veloped by the sixth century, when Orphic mystic societies 
were teaching that only initiated and purified souls could 
escape the torments of Hell. 

This Homeric picture of Hades' realm Is dark and 
gloqmy In the extreme and had a tremendous influence, 
not only on all succeeding poets, but on the minds of the 
ordinary worshipers, an influence which can be traced 
all through the subsequent centuries of Greek history. 
It has often been remarked that Homer's picture of life 
on earth is hopeless and melancholy. Almost every re- 
flective passage contains a note of sadness. Thus Glaucus 
(II. vl, 146 seq.)y says to Diomedes: " Even as are the 
generations of leaves, such are those likewise of men." 
But if life on earth was hard and cheerless, it was far 
more desirable than death; if man were the plaything of 
the gods on earth, there was no hope that the hereafter 
would right these wrongs and inequalities, no hope that 
he who had lived a pious life would receive any reward. 
As Gruppe has said : " Behind the woe in which he thinks 
he lives, the Homeric Greek sees a greater never-ending 
woe before." ^ For all the hopeless fancies conjured 
up by the imagination of man as to his future state, none 
is so hopeless as that depicted in the Nekyia. Erebos, the 
realm of King Hades, is either far to the West, or, like 
the mediaeval Hell, deep down below the earth. Tartarus, 
the deepest abyss, is a penitentiary hell not for the wicked, 

* Griechische Mythologie und Religionsg^schichte, i, p. loio. 

288 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE 

but for rebellious Titans. The Elysian Fields are men- 
tioned only once in the poems (Od. iv, 561) and the Isles 
of the Blest not at all — for these happy abodes were not 
yet definitely conceived. The meads of asphodel, on 
which the spirits tread, are frequently mentioned; the 
gray leaves and yellow blossoms of this plant, to-day so 
frequently seen on Greek graves, should leave little doubt 
that they were symbolic of the pallor of death and the 
gloom of the underworld. Homer's heroes, good and bad, 
are sent to this cheerless abode, where their existence is 
even more terrible than their dwelling place. Rohde 
says it is wrong to speak of a future life in Homer at 
all ; the spirits below lead only a shadowy copy of life on 
earth, an existence almost as neutral as Sheol. Even 
this shadowy existence is not everlasting — its one ray 
of hope ; for Odysseus sees no ghost older than the second 
or third generation before his time. Pindar's account 
(frag. 129) of the dead entertaining themselves with 
horse-racing and athletic contests, with games of draughts 
and music of the lyre, has no counterpart here. The ghost 
world had gained much additional vigor by his time. 
The very utterance of the " strengthless heads of the 
dead " is but a timorous, inarticulate squeak, which the 
poet likens to the gibbering of bats. Their spectral forms, 
bereft of bones and sinews, " sweep shadow-like around " 
and all, with the exception of the old Theban seer Teire- 
sias, are devoid of intelligence and can be recalled only 
to a momentary consciousness by drinking the blood of 
the victim which Odysseus had slain over the trench. Here 
there is no bliss, no rest, no peace. Amid such gruesome 
surroundings Achilles could well reply to Odysseus's words 
of praise for his former renown (Od. xi, 488 seq. ) : '' Nay, 
speak not comfortably to me of death, oh great Odysseus. 
Rather would I live on ground the hireling of another, 
with a landless man who has no great livelihood, than 
bear sway among all the dead that be departed.'' 
19 ' 280 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

THE MYSTERY CULTS 

It is no wonder, then, that the dark features of such 
a view of the hereafter should have called forth a protest 
which proclaimed a definite hope of future happiness and 
a less definite fear of future misery. Such ideas were 
communicated by the Mysteries, a class of rites not men- 
tioned by Homer, the greatest of them connected with a 
god and goddess — Dionysus and Demeter — who had no 
seat on Olympus. These ceremonies were practised by 
voluntary associations of individuals who pledged them- 
selves not to disclose anything seen or heard at the secret 
meetings. Each mystery had its own apparatus of sym- 
bols and formularies, so that the initiates knew one an- 
other just as Free Masons do now; each consisted of two 
parts — a sacrifice and rites in which certain foods were 
tasted, objects seen and handled and words spoken. Why 
certain Greek cults were secret and others public is not 
clear. The older explanation that the mysteries were 
pre-Hellenic and the conquered Pelasgians wished to hide 
their ancient ceremonies is hardly tenable, since in that 
case we should find them not in the hands of the nobles, 
but of the common folk. Furthermore, the divinities 
chiefly worshiped were Aryan and not Pelasgian. There 
were mysteries in honor of Gsea, Aglaurus, and the 
Graces in Attica, of Hecate in ^gina and of Themis. 
These may all be related forms of the Earth-mother, 
powers connected with the underworld. The most im- 
portant were the Orphic and Eleusinian mysteries. Those 
of Samothrace, which later rivalled these in attraction, 
were neither entirely Hellenic in origin nor ever com- 
pletely Hellenized. 

THE ORPHIC MYSTIC SOCIETIES 

The Orphic mystic societies introduced a Thraco- 
Phrygian religious tradition into Greece, which was orig- 
inally connected with the wine-god Dionysus and with 

290 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE 

Sabazius. An account of these mysteries would mean 
an account of the Dionysiac religion; here we can only 
touch upon the main doctrines of the sect and their in- 
fluence. The worship of Dionysus, originally a nature- 
god of northern origin, revealing his power over the vine 
and in the underworld, had found its way into Greece as 
early as the tenth century B.C., and by the sixth had been 
accepted by most of the Greek communities. The rites 
were mystic and secret and were performed mostly at 
night; they were characterized by ecstatic and orgiastic 
self-abandonment, in which his votaries — especially 
women — ^believed they were united with the god and 
possessed his power for a time. A savage sacrament 
consisted in eating the raw flesh of an animal regarded 
as the incarnation of the god. Thus the idea of a god 
dying and being born again was inculcated in this non- 
Greek worship. The taming of this wild god of the 
north into a civic deity, and the disciplining of his wild 
bands of Maenads into a Greek cult, was a long and 
difficult process. But slowly the savage elements dis- 
appeared, though the cult ever afterwards remained 
.more emotional than any other. 

This process of transformation was arrested by a wave 
of religious fervor which spread over the mainland in 
the seventh and sixth centuries B.C. — under the name 
of Orpheus, the legendary minstrel of Thrace, to whom 
the new mystic doctrines were ascribed. This later eso- 
teric worship probably also came from the north, even 
if indubitable evidence of Cretan and Egyptian influence 
is found in it. We know the ideas and hopes of the 
initiates chiefly from a series of gold foil tablets which 
were found in tombs at Sybarls, in South Italy, one from 
'Crete and one from near Rome, which preserve fragments 
of a metrical liturgy or creed dating from the third cen- 
tury B.C., if not earlier. These were buried with the 
Orphic dead as charms against the dangers which beset 

291 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

their journey below and to open to them the gates of 
Heaven, and they form what Gomperz has rightly called 
an " Orphic Book of the Dead." The initiated soul 
proclaims its divine descent in these words: ^' I am the 
son of Earth and Starry Heaven " ; "I come from the 
pure " ; '' I have paid the penalty of sin " ; ''I have flown 
out of the weary, sorrowful circle of life." Its future 
reward is made certain by these words : " O blessed and 
happy one, thou hast put off thy mortality and shalt be- 
come divine." 

This was a new and strange message to the Greeks, a 
direct protest against the Homeric concept of the soul's 
hereafter. Though Homer's picture of life is melan- 
choly, still life is the centre of interest and far preferable 
to death. But to the Orphic, life here in the body is not 
life, but a living death. What we call death is merely 
the door of freedom for the soul from the body, its prison- 
house. The real life, then, is hereafter, when the soul 
rejoins its former communion with the gods, for it is 
divine like them both in its origin and nature. 

When it enters into a human body it contracts sin 
and its constant aim, like that of a fallen angel, is release 
and recovery o-f its former glory. Since it lost its power 
through sin, it can regain it only through purification, 
which is accomplished by the observance of a certain con- 
duct of life — the avoidance of the taint of meat, of 
funerals, of childbirth. The eating of flesh was regarded 
as mere cannibalism, for according to the Orphic doctrine 
of metempsychosis, " the circle of life," all animals were 
kin. After cycles of lives the soul finally reaches its goal 
and lives on keeping its personality — for the Orphics 
had no notion of absorption like the Buddhists. Thus 
under the term Orphism we class all the elements lack- 
ing in the Epic tradition: a sense of original sin, the 
soul being condemned to earthly, existence as a punish- 
ment for the early crime of the Titans, man's ancestors, 

2Q2 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE 

who had treacherously slain the young god Zagreus; 
the need of purification for that sin; the idea of the 
incarnate man-god; escape from evil and immortality. 
These elements, foreign to the Olympian system, were 
un-Greek influences from the north, from Crete, Egypt 
and Asia Minor, elements which easily fused with the 
older Mediterranean beliefs. 

These doctrines were especially strong in Crete and 
Athens. In South Italy they were early crossed by Pythag- 
oreanism, the influence probably being mutual. The 
Pythagorean brotherhoods became its militant orders and 
their priests were the first European missionaries. The 
downfall of these societies certainly saved Greece from 
the danger of establishing Orphism as a secular power, 
which would have strangled the free Greek spirit with 
sacerdotalism and all that goes with it. Henceforth its 
influence was private, and some of the greatest Greek 
minds were attracted by it. Pindar's eschatology seems 
to have been largely inspired by it; his idea of the next 
world as a Purgatory, or place of penance and purgation 
from personal and ancestral taint, was Orphic, as also 
his doctrine of reincarnation and final reward for the 
purified soul. The Orphic idea of the divine origin of 
the soul is seen in one of his fragments (102) : *' Blessed 
is he who, having seen these things, goes below the 
hollow earth; he sees the end of life and the beginning of 
the gods." Though ^schylus and Sophocles held aloof 
from Orphism, Euripides, true to his nature, was both 
attracted to and repelled by it. In his inspired drama, 
the Bacchanals, he makes the votaries rejoice to be one 
with the god and to be called by his name. The philoso- 
pher Empedocles borrowed much from the new faith — ^his 
insistence on guilt and purification, and his cycle of rein- 
carnations. 

Plato, though protesting, like Theophrastus and Plu- 
tarch after him, against the professional mystery mongers 

293 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

and spiritual quacks, who, under the name of Orpheus, 
went about in the fourth century vending incantations 
and promises of indulgences through purifications and 
mystic initiations, still was intensely interested in the real 
beliefs of the Orphics and deeply indebted to them for 
some of his deepest thinking. His doctrine of the soul 
in the Phsedrus is Orphic; his cosmic Eros or Love in 
that dialogue and in the Timseus was an Orphic god ; his 
glorification of inspired madness, which he calls one of 
Heaven's blessings, certainly came from the Thracian 
cult of Dionysus ; his immortal soul striving to reach the 
heights of the god-life, in its several incarnations im- 
proving through righteousness and deteriorating through 
unrighteousness, making man in the one case and beast 
in the other, was based on the Orphic " wheel of life." 
According to Plato, each soul has the choice to- go upwards 
or downwards each thousand years, and it must pass 
through a cycle of ten thousand years before it reaches 
its original state again, for only the souls of philosophers 
and lovers are enabled, after choosing the better life 
three times, to escape in three thousand. Plato's doctrine 
of the soul's anamnesis or remembrance of the glorious 
sights of justice, truth, wisdom and temperance among 
the gods is also based on the Orphic well of remembrance, 
Mnemosyne. In the Phsedo he makes Socrates quote the 
founder of the mysteries as saying that (69c, Jowett) 
" he who passed imsanctified and uninitiated into the 
world below will live in a slough, but he who arrives there^ 
after initiation and purification, will dwell among the 
gods." For " many, as they say in the mysteries, are the 
thyrsus-bearers, but few are the mystics," meaning, as 
I interpret the words, the true philosophers. In brief, 
it may be said that this mystery religion influenced the 
poet-philosopher far more than all the gods of Homer. 
In Hellenistic days, as we shall see, Orphism received 

294 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE 

a fresh lease of life at the beginning of the new era 
of individualism, and as late as Plutarch's time continued 
to give consolation to the afflicted. Its lofty ideals of 
morality also contributed much tO' Christianity. The 
Orphic Hell influenced the picture of similar tortures 
depicted in the Apocalyptic literature. Even in the Middle 
Ages its influence was still felt, when the horrors of the 
Christian ghost world were increased by the barbarous 
imagination of the north. 

THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES 

The most pan-Hellenic of the mysteries were those 
celebrated at Eleusis, near Athens, in honor of Demeter 
and Kore, with a third figure in the background — the 
god of the lower world, euphemistically called Eubouleus 
or Pluto, the ravisher and husband of Kore. These rites 
were originally agrarian and tribal and seem to have been 
restricted to certain Eleusinian clans. By the fifth cen- 
tury B.C., however, they had become a recognized branch 
of Athenian public worship, though only initiates were 
allowed to be present at the ceremonies. By that time, 
in contrast to the Orphic mysteries, which always re- 
mained sectarian, they were opened to all Athenians and 
all Greeks without distinction of city or tribe, to " all 
of intelligible speech and pure of blood." Afterwards 
they were open even to women and children and slaves, 
and, later, to Romans. When Athens became the focus 
of Greek life, the Eleusinia became as truly pan-Hellenic 
in character as the oracle at Delphi or the games at 
Olympia, and their power did not wane until the advent 
of Christianity. 

To-day we know much more about the Eleusinian 
mysteries than did the scholars of a generation ago, and 
yet we know but little. Modem students of comparative 
religion and anthropology have helped us a good deal in 

295 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

making reasonable hypotheses, while archaeology — the 
study of vases, reliefs, inscriptions, and especially the re- 
sults of the excavations carried on at Eleusis — has told 
us much of their external organization and shown us the 
deities exactly as they appeared to the ancient initiates. 
We know that a mimetic drama of the nature of a mediae- 
val Passion Play took place, in which was represented 
the story of Demeter's sorrowful search for her ravished 
daughter, and the subsequent marriage of Kore and 
Pluto and possibly the birth of a sacred child. In the 
production of such a play we know that no elaborate 
scenic effects took place in the Eleusinium to represent 
Heaven and Hell, since the excavations there have dis- 
closed neither substructures nor underground passages. 
iWe also know that something more than this drama took 
place; that the hierophant revealed certain sacred objects 
and celebrated a holy communion. We have no proof, 
however, that a more mystic sacrament took place, in 
which the initiates believed they were partaking of the 
body of deity, as many scholars have assumed. We also 
are assured that these rites were not mere magical ones 
intended to promote the fertility of the fields or the well- 
being of the mystic. The secret of their tremendous influ- 
ence cannot be thus explained. 

Scholars have made unwearying efforts to solve the 
problem of the inner esoteric meaning of the ritual. 
Eleusinian scenes on fifth century vases help very little, 
since it was sacrilegious for the painter to reveal the 
mystery. Pagan writers, though showing the good influ- 
ence of these secret rites, are equally reticent. Few of the 
Church Fathers, though they were not bound by scruples, 
were pagans in their youth — like Clement and Arnobius — 
and so could have been initiated. What was this cen- 
tral mystery? There was certainly a sacred discourse, 
which could not have been concerned merely with corn 

296 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE 

symbolism, as Varro implies, nor with nature philosophy, 
as certain passages in Cicero seem to indicate. A part 
of it may have explained the sacred symbols and it may 
have been colored by the philosophy of the day. But 
that could not have been all; it is safe to affirm that this 
discourse held out to the initiates a promise of future 
happiness. Just how this was done we cannot say. Fou- 
cart's notion that the whole object of the mysteries was, 
like that of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, to provide 
the initiates mere passwords and magic formulae to help 
them on their road below and deliver them from the ter- 
rors of Hell, is in harmony with his Egyptianizing theory 
of their origin, but can no longer be maintained, even if 
Egyptian influence can be traced in them. A passage in 
Aristotle helps us in solving the mystery. He says that 
the initiates '' do not learn anything so much as feel cer- 
tain emotions and are put into a certain mental attitude." 
Thus the appeal must have been to the eye and imagina- 
tion — perhaps through a sort of religious mesmerism in- 
duced by the solemnity of the occasion, something akin 
to our Christian communion service or Catholic mass, a 
phenomenon not difficult to understand when we remem- 
ber how susceptible Greek imagination was to the solemn 
pomp of religious pageantry. The initiates would go 
away, then, with a sense of closer union with the Powers 
of the underworld and a conviction of their future weal. 
These mysteries gave to Greek religion an atmosphere of 
awe and mystery and promise which was largely absent 
from the public cult. They must have awakened the 
imagination of the initiates to great heights of spiritual 
and moral grandeur — even if our knowledge of them does 
not let us definitely postulate just what the moral or 
spiritual dogmas were which they inculcated. They truly 
were, as Dr. Farnell has said, '' the highest and purest and 
most spiritual product of Greek religion." 

297 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

THE STATE OF RELIGION IN ATHENS IN THE FIFTH AND 
FOURTH CENTURIES B.C. 

The period roughly extending from 500 to 3*38 B.C., 
i.e., from the beginning of the Persian wars to the final 
loss of Greek independence at the battle of Chseronea, 
witnessed in secular history the ever-memorable struggle 
of Greek and barbarian, the gradual rise and the down- 
fall of the imperial city of Athens, the Peloponnesian war, 
which, viewed from its results, was the greatest in history, 
the emergence of the Macedonians as the first world 
power. In the history of culture it saw the bloom of the 
Attic drama and of Greek lyric in Pindar, the acme of 
the world's greatest sculpture and architecture, the diffu- 
sion of education and the rise of the scientific spirit 
engendered by the Sophists, and the highest development 
of philosophy in Plato. In brief, not only the restricted 
Periclean age, but the two centuries taken together were 
the greatest in the world's history. Consequently, it is 
interesting for us to know what the cultivated Greeks in 
general and their greatest community, Athens, in particu- 
lar thought about religion. 

It is a popular fallacy that the old Homeric polytheism 
had lost its hold on men's minds by the end of the fifth 
century. But if we compare the beliefs then held with 
those of Homer, we shall find that the same deities were 
still worshiped, that no cult had disappeared nor any 
O'f the popular rites fallen into decay. On the contrary, 
during most of the century, the old system was stronger 
than ever — even the old animistic belief in the river gods 
being retained. New deities were added, as Pan from 
Arcadia at the beginning of the century, and Asclepius 
from Epidaurus toward the close. While the struggle 
against Hannibal in Italy had caused the old Roman 
faith to be shaken, the Greek struggle against Persia had 
increased belief in the gods who had given them victory. 
Zeus then received such titles aj Hellenios, *' the god of 

298 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE 

the Greeks," his highest political title, and Eleutherios, 
" the god of freedom." A deep conviction of the part 
which the gods played in men's affairs grew up. Herod- 
otus, Pindar and ^schylus looked upon the Persian 
struggle as a conflict of moral forces, much as the Allies 
look upon the present European struggle. Only the Del- 
phic oracle, which had shown a vacillating un-Hellenic 
spirit during the struggle, had lost its political influence. 
Again during the Peloponnesian war it had openly taken 
the side of Athens' enemies, and so thereafter lost all 
reverence from the Attic people. In the fourth century 
B.c.^ Demosthenes contemptuously speaks of it as **' the 
shadow of Delphi." The only influence it exerted hence- 
forth was ethical and religious, when it became a sort of 
private confessional, which gave sacerdotal advice. 

The Modernist spirit of Ionia had not yet vitally 
influenced the popular notions of religion. The fact that 
Anaxagoras and Protagoras were tried and Socrates put 
to death shows how strong the old polytheism still re- 
mained. The mutilation of the Herm<B on the eve of 
the sailing of the Sicilian expedition toward the end of 
the century caused such a commotion at Athens as indi- 
rectly to destroy its hopes of success and entail the sub- 
sequent downfall of the imperial city. People who laughed 
at Aristophanes's and Euripides's burlesques of the gods 
in the theatre were none the less devoted to the worship 
of these deities. Art made anthropomorphism still 
stronger throughout the fourth century; sculptures, vase 
paintings and glyptics of this age are still the most per- 
fect examples of religious art. Perhaps a more spiritual 
belief than that of Greece would not have endured even 
such masterpieces with equal patience. In any case, art 
certainly helped to keep Greek religion from earlier yield- 
ing to the influence of alien cults. The philosophers as 
yet had made little protest against idolatry; Xenophanes 

299 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

in the sixth century made the most notable, while in the 
fourth the Stoics condemned both temples and idols. 

The influence of literature in these centuries was no 
less marked than that of art. The subject is too vast to 
more than adumbrate here. It is easy enough to collect 
passages from Greek writers which bear on religion, but 
it is difficult to say how much such material modified the 
popular beliefs. Pindar, ^schylus and Sophocles seem 
to have accepted the existing system with but little pro- 
test and they tried to ennoble rather than to destroy it. 
Pindar was the first literary preacher of Greece ; his Or- 
phic eschatology first raised the subject of Paradise to 
the level afterwards attained by Dante and Milton. 
Sophocles and ^schylus, on the other hand, say little o-f 
the hereafter; but all three writers clearly teach the maj- 
esty and the mercy of Zeus and Destiny. Pindar gives 
us the brighter side, while ^schylus pictures the gloomy 
forces of the world of shades. Pindar antedates Plato 
in protesting against the ignoble features of the Epic 
myths. Euripides belonged to a different period, to the 
Age of Enlightenment, the mental attitude of Modern- 
ism. Himself no philosopher, incapable of formulating 
a system of thought or ethics and with few convictions, 
he merely stimulated others by his doubts to think. We 
cannot say what he believed, for he believed different 
things at different times ; but it seems clear that his ulti- 
mate idea of God was pantheistic. He protested strongly 
against immoral myths, but his religious influence on the 
people must have been small. Aristophanes, his contem- 
porary, never understood him nor his position, but cham- 
pioned the reaction against Modernism, holding it up to 
ridicule with unparalleled sarcasm. 

The influence of the philosophical protest In Greece 
against religion Is a subject on which many volumes 
have been written. The physical notions of the early 
lonians, which gave birth to the free secular science of 

300 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE 

Europe, were concerned with theories of cosmogony 
and could not have clashed seriously with religion, be- 
cause there were no sacred writings. Though finding 
little in Zeus, they did not break with the popular faith, 
but in their explanations went back to the Pelasgian 
nature gods before Zeus. Thus Thales, the first to seek 
unity in things, taught that the world came from water, 
i.e., the old nature deity Oceanus. In the sixth century, 
however, thinkers became directly concerned with theology 
and began to speculate on the nature of the godhead. 
Many of their fragments disclose ideas hostile to the 
concepts of polytheism, and the main trend of their specu- 
lation was against anthropomorphism, tending to define 
the godhead not as a person but as a spiritual power — 
a tendency from theism to pantheism. Pythagoras, the 
mathematician and Orphic mystic, was hostile to the pub- 
lic worship, even though his followers compromised with 
it. He explained the godhead in mathematical terms and 
was willing to accept the gods, if he could only find their 
mathematical equations. The strongest and severest pro- 
test against the Homeric system was made in the name 
of reason and morals by Xenophanes, the poet, theologian 
and philosopher. In his famous fragments, preserved 
to us by Clement of Alexandria, he thus assails polythe- 
istic notions : *' Mortals think the gods are born and 
have dress and voice and form like their own.'* " The 
Ethiopians imagine their gods are black and flat-nosed: 
the Thracians make theirs blue-eyed and red-haired." 
''If oxen or lions had hands or could draw with their 
hands and make works of art like men, horses would 
draw figures of gods like horses, oxen like oxen, giving 
them bodies like the form which they themselves pos- 
sessed.'* In another fragment he says, " Homer and 
Hesiod ascribed to the gods everything disgraceful and 
shameful among men, theft, adultery and deceit." Over 
against such vulgar notions he sets his own idea that 

301 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

" There is one God, greatest both among gods and men, 
resembling mortals neither in form nor in thought." Thus 
he rejected not only physical but mental anthropomor- 
phism. This God " without effort swings the universe by 
the purpose of his mind," and " ever abides in the same 
place nor moves at all," for he is " all-seeing, all-hearing, 
all mind." Thus Xenophanes's god is the Universe itself, 
endued with sense and design. Heraclitus is contemptu- 
ous in about the same way, denying that the universe 
had a creator or a beginning : " This cosmic order, the 
same for all beings, no god nor man made, but it always 
was and is and shall be, ever-living fire, blazing up and 
dying down." His scorn of the popular notions of re- 
ligion is seen in this passage : " Men pray to idols, just 
as if one were to converse with houses, not knowing what 
is the nature of gods and houses." He called the Bac- 
chanalian devotees " night roamers, magians, wild 
women, mystse," and pronounced the initiations imholy. 
He despised all the poets in general as the guides of the 
populace, and in particular Homer and Hesiod, the former 
of whom he said "ought to be cast out of the arena 
and scourged." 

Religion, however, had not parted company with phi- 
losophy in the sixth and early years of the fifth centuries 
B.c.^ for speculation as yet had only influenced the few. 
But by the second half of the fifth century the state wor- 
ship had to notice the philosophical protest, for this was 
the period in which Anaxagoras, Protagoras and Socrates 
(the latter in 399) were haled into the courts. By the 
fourth century the need of religion was more real than 
the state worship could satisfy, and so a strong impulse 
was given to philosophical speculation. From Plato on- 
wards philosophers were inspired with a desire to explain 
the world religiously as well as metaphysically, and men 
turned to philosophy for religious comfort. It is interest- 
ing to know the attitude of Plato, the greatest of 

302 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE 

Greek thinkers, toward the contemporary rehgion. Plato 
was no revolutionary iconoclast of the popular notions 
as Xenophanes and Heraclitis had been in the sixth or 
Empedocles in the fifth century. He merely believed in 
reforming the Homeric mythology, purging it of its im- 
moral features — the stories of the conflict of wills among 
the gods, their vengeance, jealousy and amours. In the 
Republic (S77-S, Jowett) he blames the poets for these 
ignoble elements and says that they *' ought not to be 
lightly told to young and simple persons; if possible, 
they had better be buried in silence." For " the young 
man should not be told that in committing the worst 
of crimes he is far from doing anything outrageous. 
. . . and in this will only be following the example of 
the first and greatest among the gods." He had no idea 
of abolishing idols nor sacrifices — though, like his teacher 
Socrates, he inculcated simple offerings. In the Epinomis 
he says the legislator will not change a single detail of the 
ritual, because he knows nothing of the inner truth back 
of the form. Even in his most advanced metaphysical 
speculations he leaves a place for the popular pantheon. 
His last work, the Laws, reflects strongly the popular be- 
liefs and a sympathy with them. Here he accepts most 
of the religion of the old City-State, only purging the 
myths about the godhead. In the Timceus he ranges the 
Olympians below the supreme transcendental God of the 
universe. Here, in the scale of divine creation, they are 
given the third place, after the Sun and Moon and Planets, 
which are the second works of the Creator, the first being 
Cosmic Heaven. They are not altogether immortal nor 
indissoluble, but are held together eternally by the will of 
the highest God. To them was given the labor of creat- 
ing man by weaving mortal and immortal together, and 
God gave even a part of his own divinity and immortality 
for this purpose. In this way the morality of mortals 
is explained, which would have been inexplicable if man 

303 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

had sprung directly from God. Thus we see Plato's 
esoteric system left Olympianism almost unimpaired. 
The old system was enough if it were only strengthened 
morally. Later schools, which went by his name, were 
more interested in purely religious speculations and finally 
degenerated into the mystic superstition of Neo-Platonism. 
Plato, then, contributed much to the dissemination in 
Greece of belief in God's spiritual nature, and much to 
the cleansing of the old Homeric pantheon of its cruder 
and lower elements. 

RELIGION IN THE HELLENISTIC AND ROMAN AGE 

In conclusion let us briefly consider the state of re- 
ligion in Greece after the loss of independence at the 
hands of the Macedonians, during the so-called Hellenistic 
and Grseco-Roman periods down to the time of St. Paul 
and the earlier Gnostics. 

With the establishment of the Macedonian empire 
and the conquests of Alexander great changes were 
wTcmght not only in the pohtical and social life: of 
Greece, but in religion. Some of these changes were 
in the direction of decay, while others heralded a new 
life. From this period on the internal development of 
Hellenism was practically at an end and its further his- 
tory was concerned only with external changes. The 
scene now shifts from the Balkan peninsula to an im- 
perial world stretching from Spain to India, from the 
sands of the Sahara to the steppes of Russia. Its centre 
is no longer Athens, but in succession Alexandria, Per- 
gamum, Antioch. It is not very difficult to understand 
why the Greek language followed the armies of Alex- 
ander and finally became the means of communication in 
Egypt, Syria and the East. It is more difficult to under- 
stand how Greek culture spread everywhere — even if we 
do not feel obliged to believe the statement of Plutarch 
that Homer was commonly read in Asia and that " the 

304 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE 

children of the Persians, of the inhabitants of Susa and 
Gedrosia played the tragedies of Euripides and Sophocles" 
and that the " inhabitants of India, Bactria and the 
Caucasus worshiped Greek gods." The explanation 
has been succinctly given in these words of the historian 
Burckhardt : ** Greek culture alone had the capacity 
to embrace and interpret all the rest of the world; its 
spirit made a universal appeal through poetry, art and 
philosophy." 

Behind all the changes of this period was the con- 
sciousness of a wide-spread failure of Greek ideals, which 
changed the whole viewpoint of men's ideas of life and of 
the soul. First, there was the failure of the City-State, 
which was crushed by Philip and later by the military 
monarchies set up by Alexander's successors. The decay 
of local patriotism meant the decay of the idea of patriot- 
ism as a Greek ideal. Cosmopolitanism means devotion 
to no state. Consequently, politics, the lode-stone of the 
older Greeks, no longer attracted men of ability or char- 
acter. The failure of the City-State also caused men to 
lose faith in government in general. It made little differ- 
ence how opulent the kingdom of Egypt might be or how 
powerful or stable the empire of Rome might become; 
still to a thoughtful Greek of this age, with memories of 
the old independence and liberty, life seemed hardly worth 
living. Even the propaganda of Hellenism, instituted by 
Alexander with the idea of teaching Greek ideas to bar- 
barians, seemed to be resulting slowly in the destruction 
of the ideas it tried to spread. Worst of all, with the 
loss of the City-State the influence of the old Olympian 
theology waned, for the two were bound up together. 
Even before Philip's conquest the philosophical assault 
on the ancient system had slowly gained ground and had 
undermined the popular faith without putting an adequate 
substitute in its place. Men still perfunctorily observed 
the outward forms of religion but had lost faith in their 
20 305 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

efficacy. With unbelief came superstition, and comfort 
was sought in foreign cults. 

Amid the debris of ancient ideals the Hellenistic Greek 
looked to himself, to his own feelings and thoughts. In- 
stead of trying to live justly, as Socrates had inculcated, 
and to help his fellow-men by the example of a pious life, 
it was now his aim to seek personal holiness and salvation. 
Whereas the aim of the old religion had been the family, 
the tribe and the City, the aim of the new was the indi- 
vidual. The old Greek had gloried in good works; the 
later gloried in his personal faith. The loss of political 
hope, the despair of hoping to arrive at truth through 
patient inquiry, gave birth to a new ideal — mysticism, 
asceticism, selfish individualism. Consequently, although 
the new age was one of enlightenment, of great thinkers 
Hke Zeno, Cleanthes, Chrysippus, still it was full of 
morbidity and pessimism. The Greek now turned to 
revelations and mysteries, to the neglect of this transitory 
life in the hope of an eternal sinless one to come. The 
physical and political wcfrld was no longer the interest of 
religion ; its horizon from now on was beyond the tomb. 

The decay of Olympianism was very gradual. Though 
long despised by educated men, it did not lose its hold on 
the people all at once. Polytheism — the belief that the 
world was mercifully and justly governed by a number 
of gods — was hard to get rid of even when it could not 
withstand criticism and when it no longer satisfied the 
moral yearnings of men. Thus for some time yet there 
were no deserted temples nor any decline in the old State 
festivals. Olympianism was still able to make conquests 
even in the fourth century b.c. — even in faraway Car- 
thage. In the next century it got a new lease of life in 
Rome, where its last chapter was to be written centuries 
later in the Imperial Age. In these later centuries mothers 
gave to their babies personal names which show they still 
believed in the old gods — Apollodorus, "the gift of 

306 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE 

Apollo," Hermodorus, the " gift of Hermes," Apollonius, 
Athenseus, Dionysius and many others. Zeus, Athena 
and Apollo, the leaders and guardians of the old City- 
State, were the first of the deities to disappear when their 
citadels fell. But Athena, though shorn of all civic and 
political power, was destined for centuries yet to be the 
Madonna of Athens, and Zeus was still to enjoy his old 
religious character. Pausanias, who wrote in the second 
century of our era, probably reflects the religious belief 
of ordinary men of his day when he says : '' All men 
agree that Zeus reigns in heaven" (ii, 24, 4). The 
Mainotes of Laconia, dwelling on the rugged slopes of 
Taygetus, still worshiped some of the Olympians five 
hundred years after the rest of the Roman Empire had 
accepted the religion of Jesus, finally becoming Christian- 
ized only in the reign of Basil towards the end of the ninth 
century. It might be added that modern Greek folk-lore 
still shows indubitable traces of the old polytheism, such 
as belief in Nereids, Satyrs, Dryads and even the Fates. 
When a Greek calls the thunder " starry axe " or says 
*' God is raining," he is still unconsciously believing in 
the powers of the old Sky-god Zeus, as he is in those of 
Poseidon, when he says, as on the island of Zante, that 
earthquakes are caused by " God shaking his locks." 
Such popular ideas have little in common with those of 
the Christian heaven; for it is as joyless and gloomy 
a realm to the modern peasant as it was to the men of 
Homer's day. Coins are still placed in the mouths of 
the dead in Smyrna and parts of Macedonia. Even 
Charon himself lives on as Charos, though he is no longer 
the grim ferryman, but the black angel of death riding 
a great black horse. Similarly many of the modern festi- 
vals are the direct descendants of those of the ancient 
Greeks. 

The dominant note, then, of the latter centuries of 
Hellenism was personal religion. As the older cults 

307 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

slowly lost their hold and a craving was born in the 
individual for an intimate union with deity, a great im- 
pulse was given to the old mysteries. Thus in the fourth 
centnry the Eleusinia were extended, those of Andania 
were reorganized, and those of Megalopolis were instil 
tuted. In the later centuries foreign ones were added, 
as those of Samothrace, of Attis, of Isis, of the Great 
Mother, and finally of Mithra. Some of their ideas 
passed over into Christianity, such as the saving grace of 
baptism, the communion with God by a holy sacrament, 
the mystic death and rebirth of the neophyte. Such rites 
and beliefs satisfied men's yearning for immortality or 
absorption in the deity. Sometimes, as in the mysteries 
of Cybele and Sabazius, the sense of divinity was com- 
municated by the simulatic«i of a holy marriage or sex 
communion with goddess or god. Mainly for such rea- 
sons all these mysteries were indiscriminately condemned 
by the Church Fathers. 

Apart from the mysteries, many brotherhoods — thiasi 
— were formed, devoted to special cults. Secret societies 
devoted to the Olympian gods had existed in Greece, as 
we have seen, from early times, but none was instituted 
for the service of alien deities till the very end of the 
fifth century. In the Macedonian period we have many 
inscriptional records of such guilds. They show the de- 
velopment of humanitarian ideas in religion, since for- 
eigners were fully admitted, whereas in the older mysteries 
only Greeks could be initiates. Thus it was no longer 
blood relationship which brought men together, but a feel- 
ing of fellowship with some god. Such brotherhoods 
were born of personal religion, and also quickened its 
progress and became models for the early Christian so- 
cieties. They bear witness to the fusion of ideas between 
the West and East, of which Alexander had dreamed ; for 
they were missionaries in the movement which we call 
theocrasia — the blending of the religions of West and 

308 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE 

East. This was no new idea of the Hellenistic Age, for 
Herodotus shows it was natural in the fifth century to 
interpret foreign gods in terms of Greek, and Euripides 
had actually commended Cybele as Demeter. But before 
Alexander's day it was dangerous to introduce foreign 
cults into Greece. Some few had gotten in about the time 
of the fifth century, and even earlier Aphrodite's wor- 
ship at Corinth had become contaminated with the im- 
pure ritual of an Oriental cult. But the inevitable was 
sure to come and Greece, though already rich in gods, 
became hospitable to the gods of strangers, ultimately 
receiving them from Egypt, Phoenicia, Syria, Assyria, 
Persia and Asia Minor. With the new gods alien rituals 
came and they were open to Greeks and foreigners, to 
women and slaves. Before the fourth century had passed 
Athens became alarmed at the invasion. Phryne, the 
model of Praxiteles, was tried on a charge of affiliating 
with an alien cult. But the legal barriers were weak 
and we see the Phrygian Sabazius introduced at the end 
of the fifth, and the Syrian Aphrodite, the Thracian 
Cotytto and others in the fourth. 

These new worships were generally mystic and con- 
sequently were viewed with suspicion and generally con- 
demned, though without reason, as immoral. After 
.Alexander's time things got worse. With the establish- 
ment of the kingdoms of his successors, the old gentile 
barriers of religion broke down completely. The whole 
later history of paganism is concerned with the gradual 
influx of Eastern ideas. So far as religion was concerned 
it was Asia conquering Greece, for Greece was far more 
open to Oriental influences than Asia was to Hellenic. 
Some of these princes instituted cults for both Greeks 
and Orientals. Thus Ptolemy, for political reasons, 
founded the temple of the god Serapis, who had been 
worshiped for centuries at Sinope, and who was trans- 
ported to Alexandria with great ceremony; the Syrian 

309 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

town of Bambyce was resettled by Seleucus as Hierapolis, 
the *' sacred city " ; the personality of Atargatis, a Hittite 
goddess worshiped in Carchemish and corresponding to 
the Canaanite Ashtart, became blended with Aphrodite, 
Artemis and other deities. In later centuries Egyptian, 
Syrian and Greek gods were fused together by the same 
sacrifices and ritual formulae. The name Zeus was finally 
applied to so many Eastern gods that it quite lost its 
personal meaning and simply meant " God.'* Varro, the 
most learned of the Romans, in the first century b.c. said 
it made little difference what name was used if the same 
thing was thereby understood. He looked upon Jahweh 
and Jupiter as the same god. Thus the theocrasia resulted 
not only in more mysticism, but also in a tendency toward 
monotheism and helped prepare the way for the advent of 
Christianity. We owe this great idea of tolerance, then, 
to the Greeks ; it was an idea impossible for the Hebrews 
to attain. The process of fusion was completed when 
finally Christianity entered Greece in the wake of these 
Eastern creeds. Theodosius II ordered the destruction 
of all temples, like that of the Serapeum, and in 529 a.d. 
Justinian closed the schools of Athens, the last refuge of 
Hellenic thought. 

Another characteristic of this age of personal re- 
ligion was the proclaiming of immortality. The initiate 
into the faith of Osiris, of Attis, of Mithra, was con- 
forted with the promise of a happy future. But the 
doctrine of immortality taught by the old Orphic sects 
was the most popular of all. Orphism lasted on into 
the first century a.d. Its success was due partly to the 
fact that its god had been Hellenized centuries before, 
and because its ritual and its divine names — Phanes, 
Zagreus, etc. — ^had long been familiar. Furthermore, its 
picture of the hereafter was Greek in spirit. 

One of the most monstrous beliefs which grew to 
great proportions in this age was the deification of men 

310 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE 

living and dead. Germs of this belief are found in the 
sixth and fifth centuries, when heroic honors were paid 
to certain great men after death. Though the idea is 
foreign to Homer — for even Castor and Pollux in the 
Iliad were merely the mortal brothers of Helen and had 
died before the Trojan expedition — it may go back to 
the Mycenaean Greeks, as attendance at the tombs of 
heroes shows.^ The first example of it which we have 
in literature is the apotheosis of Achilles in the Mthiopis 
by Arctinus of Miletus, composed at the close of the 
eighth century B.C. The first historical example we have 
of a living man receiving worship is the cult of the Spar- 
tan general Lysander on the island of Samos at the end 
of the fifth century b.c.^ mentioned by Plutarch. The 
same writer also says that the Thasians in the next cen- 
tury wished to apotheosize the Spartan King Agesilaus, 
but that he refused the honor. Later at the end of the 
fourth century the Athenians attributed divinity to both 
Alexander and Demetrius Poliorcetes. It was easy for a 
people accustomed to the idea of man-gods to feel such a 
conception realized in Alexander. His great power, bril- 
liant personality and incredible conquests put men into 
the right attitude of mind to worship him. Besides, most 
of the kings he conquered were looked upon by their 
subjects as gods, and it was therefore felt that he was 
no man but a greater god who had destroyed them. His 
successors were men of similar power; they had huge 
armies and wealth and could accomplish seemingly im- 
possible things — rebuild by their will cities which had 
been destroyed by war or earthquake, allay without effort 
devastating famines, destroy or save by their armies 
whole provinces. Thus in his lifetime Ptolemy was offi- 
cially called Soter, "Savior," or Euergetes, ''benefactor" ; 

' Homer, II. ii, 550 seq., knew the Attic worship of Erechtheus. 
This, however, is in the late Catalogue of the Ships. 

311 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

Seleucus was called Nicator, " Victor," and Antiochus, 
Epiphanes, the " God Manifest." When we read that 
Aristotle, the soberest of philosophers, erected an altar 
to Plato, we have a different phenomenon, for this was 
no superstitious worship. He did not call his master a 
god, but merely recognized the divine element in his soul. 
It is a great mind indeed which makes its divine man 
out of such material as Plato ; it is a far commoner sort 
which makes gods out of kings and conquerors. 

Eastern polydaemonism infected the mystic, theosophi- 
cal literature of these later centuries. The early Greeks 
were not believers in good and evil spirits, but we find 
the later Greeks using exorcisms and conjurations against 
them. This superstitition has been inherited by the 
Greeks of to-day. The priests of the Orthodox Church 
still exorcise " daemons " at baptisms, which is surely 
a reminiscence of the beliefs of the Hellenistic Age. 
We must also not neglect to mention the most curious 
record of the fusion of later Hellenism with Oriental 
worship — the so-called Hermetic literature, which Dr. Far- 
nell calls the "most fantastic product of the human 
mind." It pretends to go back to Hermes Trismegistus, 
the Greek name of the Egyptian god Thoth, the reputed 
author of many works on occult science, especially al- 
chemy, theosophy and astrology. These were lost and 
other books by Alexandrine Neo-Platonists appeared in 
the second century as a jumble of philosophical and theo- 
sophical ideas. The philosophical doctrine of this litera- 
ture is not, however, earlier than the third century B.C., 
and most of it is later. The need of a mediator between 
God and man is constantly felt in these rituals. The 
formula, " I am Thou and Thou art I," is the key-note 
of these writings and their spirit is an unnatural fusion 
of Greek philosophy and Oriental theosophy and magic. 
It had some influence on Christian metaphysics. Gilbert 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE 

Murray happily sums up the influence of this fantastic 
superstition on Greece by saying that " Astrology fell 
on the Hellenic mind as a new disease falls upon some 
remote island people." ® 

THE PHILOSOPHICAL REFINEMENT OF RELIGION 

In concluding this summary sketch of the religious 
ideas of later Hellenism, it will be interesting very briefly 
to notice what substitutes philosophy gave after the 
downfall of Olympianism. Aristotle guides us in our 
inquiry by stating that the origin of human knowledge 
of the divine is two- fold — the phenomena of the sky 
and the phenomena of the soul. Since it was felt that 
there must be a mind behind the regular motions of the 
heavenly body, it was easy to regard the sun and moon 
as divine. This step had already been taken by Pythag- 
oras, Plato and Aristotle. If these are divine, then the 
Earth and the planets and stars as well as the elements, 
Water, Air, and especially Fire — for Plato affirmed that 
the gods were made of Fire — must also be divine. Most 
of the Hellenistic thinkers, then, like Chrysippus, regarded 
the " Sun and Moon and Stars " as divine, conceiving 
them as " animate, divine and eternal beings," i.e., as 
gods. As to the phenomena of the soul, the speculations 
of philosophers after Plato, with a few notable exceptions 
like the Roman Stoics, tended away from the outer world 
to the inner world of the soul. The Stoics made the soul 
a part of the divine life and taught that the savior of 
mankind was not the earthly prince, but he who saved 
men's souls. For he revealed to mortals the knowledge 
of God — a knowledge which was not merely intellectual 
in nature, but a complete union. And the method used by 

'Four Stages of Greek Religion, p. 125. I am greatly indebted 
to his third chapter, "The Failure of Nerve," in my treatment of 
the Hellenistic Ag«, as well as for the article by Farnell in Hast- 
ings' Dictionary. 

313 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

all Hellenistic and later thinking in their efforts to make 
the people understand this knowledge can be summed up, 
as Gilbert Murray says, in the one word Allegory. From 
the earlier Stoics onward they all apply this method to 
everything — to Homer, to religious traditions, to rituals 
and to the world. Thus, at the beginning of the period, 
Cleanthes looked upon the universe as a great mystic 
pageant in which the divine Stars were the dancers and 
the Sun the torch-bearing priest. His pupil, Chrysippus, 
reduced Homer's Olympians to physical and ethical prin- 
ciples. Finally Sallustius, the contemporary of the em- 
peror Julian in the fourth century of our era, came to 
look upon the whole world of matter as a great myth. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

General Works : L. R. Farnell : Cults of the Greek States, 5 vols., 
1896-1908 (the best study of the gods) ; id. article Greek Re- 
ligion, in Hastings* Dictionary of Religion and Ethics, vol. 6, 
392-425; id. article in Encycl. Brit., nth ed., 12: 527-30; A. Fair- 
banks: Handbook of Greek Religion, 1910; J. Harrison: Re- 
ligion of Ancient Greece (primer), 1905; Sir Gilbert Murray: 
Four Stages of Greek Religion, 1912; G. F. Moore: History 
of Religions, I (1913), 406 ff; L. F. A. Maury: Histoire des 
religions de la Grece Antique, 3 vols., 1857-59 (the most readable 
history); B. Meyer: Geschichte des Altertums, H, 1893-1902 
(the best historical account, treating the subject in relation to the 
political, social and economic development of the Greeks) ; P. D. 
Chantepie de la Saussaye : Lehrbuch der Religionsgeschichte, 3d 
ed., 1906 (Greek Section). 

Early Period : D. G. Hogarth : art. " ^gean Religion," in Hastings' 
Dictionary of Religion and Ethics (1908), I, 141 seq.; H. R. 
Hall: JEgean Archceology, 1915; A. Evans: Mycencean Tree 
and Pillar Cult, 1901 ; T. D. Seymour : Life in the Homeric Age, 
1908, ch, xiv ; De Visser : Die nicht menschengestaltigen Gbtter 
der Griechen, 1903. 

EsCHATOLOGY AND MYSTERIES : Famcll : Cults, 3 : 127-213, 343-367 ; id. 
art. "Mystery," Encycl. Brit., 19: 117-123; J. Harrison: Prole- 
gomena to the Study of Greek Religion, 2d ed., 1908 (Orphic 
formulae); Goblet d'Alviella; Eleusinia, 1903; P. Foucart: Les 
Grands Mysteres d'Eleusis, 1900; id. Les associations religieuses 
chez les Grecs, 1873; E. Rohde: Psyche, 6th ed., 1903; A. 
Dietrich: Nekyia, 1893; H. K. E. de Jong: Das antike Mys- 
terienwesen, 1909; L. Weniger: Vber das Collegium der 
Thyiaden, 1876. 

Divination: W. R. Halliday: Greek Divination, 1912; A. Bouche 
Leclercq : Histoire de la Divination, 4 vols., 1879-81. 

314 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE 

Speculation: L. Campbell: Religion in Greek Literature, 1898; J. 
Adam: Religious Thinkers of Greece, 1908; E. Caird: Evolu- 
tion of Theology in the Greek Philosophers, 2 vols., 1904; T. 
Gomperz: The Greek Thinkers, 1912; P. Decharme: La 
Critique des traditions religeuses chez les Grecs, 1904 ; J. 
Girard: Le Sentiment religieux en Grece, 1879; B. Zeller: Die 
Philosophie der Griechen, 5 vols. 

Worship and Monuments: W. H. D. Rouse: Greek Votit^e Offer- 
ings, 1902 ; E. Reisch : Griech. Weihgeschencke, 1890 ; P. Sten- 
gel: Die griech. Kultusalter turner, 2d ed., 1898; J. Overbeck: 
Griech. Kunstmythologie, 1871-87. 

Festivals : A. Mommsen : Feste der Stadt A then im Altertum, 1898; 
M. P. Nilsson : Griechische Feste, 1906. 

Influence on Christianity: E. Hatch: The Influence of Greek 
Ideas and Usages Upon the Christian Church, 1890. 

In writing the above chapter I wish particularly to express my 
indebtedness to the works of Fairbanks, J. Harrison (especially 
the primer), Hogarth, Hall, Murray, Farnell (especially the art. in 
Hastings* Dictionary), and articles in the EncycL Brit. 



315 



CHAPTER XI 

RELIGION OF THE ROMANS 
BY GEORGE DEPUE HADZSITS 

The history of the religious experiences of the Roman 
people falls quite naturally into four epochs which we 
can distinguish temporally and temperamentally : 

(i) The long period, indefinite in time, antecedent 
to the foundation of Rome, when the ancestors of the 
Romans were migrating from the Danube Valley and 
the Northland of Italy and were occupying the plains of 
Latium to which they were led not by any divine guid- 
ance but by instinct, by the laws of Nature and of eco- 
nomic necessity. The mists of this pre-historic period 
have lifted, and, thanks to the science of the archaeologist, 
the anthropologist and the philologist we can discern with 
amazing clarity the main outlines of the civilization of 
a people living in the iron and bronze ages; a behef in 
magic, a worship of objects and of spirits controlled the 
consciousness and the conscience of a primitive people 
who in large measure handed on their own primitive 
dreads to their descendants, the Romans. 

(2) The regal period of Rome, falling traditionally 
between 754 and 509 b.c.^ within which there were two 
moments of special consequence to the evolution of 
Roman religion, the first of which we associate with the 
name of the pious King Numa and the second of which 
was determined by an Etruscan conquest of Rome. The 
Romans always held the name of Numa in particular 
reverence. They had already passed from the animistic 
stage to that of theism and, as far as it has ever been 
given by Providence to any one man to formulate the 
religious habits of a people so that these remained — » 

316 



RELIGION OF THE ROMANS 

surveyed in the large — for centuries in the mold in which 
he had cast them, such was the opportunity, or the mis- 
sion, as you will, of the statesman who brought out of 
the chaos of earlier beliefs and practices the cosmic order 
of a state religion. The Etruscan influence confirmed 
the earlier, inherent tendency toward organization of 
ritual but the building of the Etruscan temple to Jupiter 
on the Capitoline hill with a statue of that God repre- 
sented the imposition of a new idea upon Roman religious 
beliefs, of epochal importance in its consequences. This 
imposing temple, reared on the Capitoline and proudly 
surveying the future growth of the whole city, became 
and remained the centre of religious aspirations through- 
out the 500 years of the Republic ; it became the symbol 
of republican Rome and to our imagination looms as 
large as the Parthenon in Athens or the Temple at 
Jerusalem. By the close of the sixth century b.c.^ the 
genuine Roman religion, the pure religious expression 
of the native stock, had almost attained the limit of 
its growth which in itself was an augury of impending, 
momentous changes. 

(3) In the long stretch of 300 years, following 500 
B.C., from 500 to 200 B.C., there came into Roman life 
a series of national crises with which the old religion was 
not able to cope : in moments of intense emotional strain 
the cry went forth for the help of foreign gods and from 
Greece Rome learned to w^orship gods in human form, 
with human virtues and human frailties. The resultant 
humanization of the Roman gods stripped them of theii 
mystery which had been the essence and the secret of their 
power. Far from enriching an earlier barren concept of 
deus, plastic and sensuous representations and mythologies 
of gods merely placed them in a clearer air without in- 
creasing their distinction. The old machinery of wor- 
ship did not break under the strain though admitting 
of some modifications, and religiosity was still deter- 

317 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

mined by faithful observance of established ritual. The 
adoption of the sensational cult of Magna Mater from 
Asia Minor — near the close of this period — was fraught 
with gravest peril to the religion of the Roman state 
which with the year 200 b.c. (approximately) entered 
upon the last stage of its evolution. 

(4) The deep-seated religious distrust and discontent, 
implied in the establishment of the Great Mother's wor- 
ship upon the Palatine, the very cradle of Roman life, 
bore abundant fruit in the next 150 years, when politics 
corrupted religious institutions and philosophies men- 
aced the very existence of all orthodox faith by their 
contradictory, rival definitions of that Unknown Power, 
outside, which man calls God. Civil wars, besides, shook 
men's faith in man and in government and the cataclysm 
threatened to engulf the gods who had carried Rome 
through earlier tragic experiences. There appear upon 
the horizon the faces of strange gods from the Orient 
who seemed to satisfy a personal craving and an indi- 
vidual yearning for a closer touch with God. 

(5) But when Rome emerged triumphant from her 
bloody trial, there followed a reaction in favor of the old 
gods, and the will and the skill of Augustus easily directed 
a revival of such depth and magnitude as almost to be with- 
out a parallel in history. Underneath the turbulent waters 
of politics and philosophy there had flowed a deeper current 
of religious trust which had, almost insensibly, brougjit 
about an adjustment betweer the Greek and the Roman 
religions so that a fusion of these arose in the " Graeco- 
Roman orthodoxy " of the close of the first century b.c. 
and of the imperial period. There still remained a sub- 
stratum of genuine Roman beliefs and Numa's genius 
still presided over Rome in a continuation of ceremonies 
and of forms of worship as old as Rome herself. Even 
with new ceremonies and with the organization of the 
Emperor worship, the idea of formalism remained para- 



RELIGION OF THE ROMANS 

mount in the state religion. The way to salvation for 
the primitive Italian, to whom the good will of the gods 
was a burning question, seemed to lie along the road of 
ritual, and likewise it was through cult that the imperial 
Roman thought to save his soul. The extraordinary 
hold of Roman religion, extending over a space of looo 
years and more, rests as much upon the Roman's practical 
nature and his essential lack of imagination as upon his 
respect for state authority and tradition. Through king- 
ship, through republic and through empire the religion 
of the state survived, never democratic in any real sense, 
never spiritual in any deep sense. Constantine beheld 
the sign of the cross in the skies and in 325 a.d. the Nicene 
creed was adopted, but it was not till 394 a.d. that Theo- 
dosius closed the doors of the ancient and venerable temple 
of Vesta, and forbade the worship of the Lares and the 
Penates. Some festivals survived for another 100 years 
and others have remained with change of content to the 
present time. In its formalism, Catholicism has inherited 
Rome's greatest legacy to religious history. 

As we pause for a moment on the threshold of 
Roman religion, we become aware of the existence there 
of a belief in magic, a worship of objects, and of spirits, — 
a triple inheritance from past ages which a tenacious, 
religious conservatism of the following centuries never 
completely disowned throughout the political, social and 
intellectual development of the Roman people. Many 
survivals of a primitive age persisted, some with force, 
some archaic and the targets of fault-finding arrows, some 
remaining to the eternal enslavement of Roman freedom 
and the Roman religious nature. Sympathetic magic 
was at the very root of Roman religion and to the latest 
days to the minds of the superstitious at the festival of 
the Carmentalia the spells of the wise women, the Car- 
mentes, assisted at child-birth, while at the Fordicidia 

319 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

the sacrifice of pregnant cows in the middle of April 
aided the sprouting seed. To be sure a Cynic of the age 
of Nero laughed at the folly of the antiquated institution 
of the Aqu^liciuMf but the pontiffs solemnly carried the 
sacred stone to the Capitoline and prayed to Jupiter for 
rain until the people were drenched like rats by the 
responsive rain that fell in bucket fuls. The influence 
of the early magician must have been almost boundless 
as we learn from J. G. Frazer, and the perversity of 
human nature not to recognize the proper relation between 
cause and effect gave even in historic times power to the 
Luperci whose magic strips of goat-skin lashed the un- 
offending backs of hopeful women who placed themselves 
in the way of priests celebrating holiday in February. 
The fascination of magic runs through the miraculous 
tale that is told of the acquisition by the Romans of a 
shield from the sky which was to be a pledge of Rome's 
empire. Faunus and Picus were dwellers in a grove at 
the foot of the Aventine hill and by their incantations 
brought Jupiter down from his habitation above; Jupiter 
promised Numa a pledge of empire and on the following 
day in the presence of a startled people the God thrice 
thundered without a cloud, thrice darted his lightnings 
and — ^behold! a shield, gently poised on the breeze, fell 
at their feet. To the magician, prayer and propitiation 
were unknown, but the countless moods of the primitive 
Italian responded variously to his mysterious environ- 
ment; failure of magic gave birth to a degree of humility 
and reverence in the presence of dissociate and uncon- 
trollable phenomena of lightning, thunder, clouds, moan- 
ing winds, earthquakes, volcanic disturbances, floods and 
echoes. 

The majesty of the primeval forest inspired a venera- 
tion that lived in the worship of the sacred fig tree of the 
Palatine and the sacred oak of Jupiter Feretrius on the 
Capitoline. It was near an ancient cypress tree that had 

320 



RELIGION OF THE ROMANS 

been guarded through many years by the rehgious awe 
of his fathers that -^neas appointed a meeting place for 
his refugees from burning Troy, The worship of bound- 
ary stones, too, was never lost even in the later fully 
developed cult of the god Terminus whose symbol — 
marking the point at which the properties of two or 
three owners converged — was holy in the eyes of the coun- 
try people who had buried fruits of the earth, bones, 
ashes and blood of a victim where the symbol was firmly 
fixed in the ground. That worship of animals also ex- 
isted among the primitive Latins is the belief of Reinach, 
although Wissowa is equally emphatic that such was not 
the case. The cult of other natural objects doubtless 
played a more prominent part in Roman religion than the 
worship of animals, but all the circumstances of the 
Latin Festival strongly suggest that in that ancient cere- 
mony on the Alban mountain we have — continued from 
primitive times to the third century a.d. — a common 
meal of a sacred victim, a sacrament, a communion on 
■the part of the deputies with the god, the victim and each 
other. The peculiarly solemn nature of this ceremony 
on the hills that dominate the whole Latin plain carries 
us back to the ancient days when cattle were sacred 
animals, when a pastoral people were groping about for 
objects upon which to fasten a sentiment, profounder than 
any secular feeling, until they could conceive the idea of 
a spirit haunting objects and could transfer the emotion 
of awe and reverence to the spirit of the thing. 

Lucretius was well aware that there was a stage in the 
evolution of Roman religion when a life, analogous to 
human life — inspired by a fearful contemplation of in- 
comprehensible phenomena and confirmed by the mysteries 
of dreams — was attributed to aspects of Nature. The 
primitive Latin came to feel that his whole world was 
filled with vague, ill-defined spirits or Powers, invisible 
and Intangible, more potent In the Universe than himself 
21 321 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

or his magic. It was a fantastic world in which he lived, 
a world through which these spirits or hob-goblins danced 
and with whom he must needs make his peace. These 
forces were the products of an animistic stage and the 
significant term of niimina defined the Will that was 
theirs. Numina lived in the trees, in the springs, in the 
fields, at the hearth, in the cupboard, at the threshold; 
they were associated with women and child-birth, with 
men and procreation, with the crops, with the woodland, 
with the cattle and the fruits, with the earth and the 
boundaries of the fields. This polydaemonism was a poly- 
theism in germ, the natural product of a manifold world 
that was pluralistic in its variety and suggestiveness. In 
this entanglement of the real and the visionary, fear was 
a constant element, the real spring as Petronius thought 
of Roman religious feeling. Virgil caught the dramatic 
spirit of this situation which he represented as follows : 

E'en then rude hinds the spot revered; 
E'en then the wood, the rock they feared. 
Here in this grove, these wooded steeps, 
Some god unknown his mansion keeps. 

The first theology of the ancestors of the Romans con- 
sisted in his knowledge of these numina and their dwell- 
ing places, and his ritual was determined by a need of 
propitiation and expiation through the performance of 
proper rites and sacrifices upon the fields and in the home. 
There must have been constant fear of trespassing upon 
forbidden territory, of offending or of alienating, and of 
suffering from wrongs committed wittingly or unwit- 
tingly. The whole future history of Roman ritual is an 
eloquent monument to the ancient, deep emotional dis- 
turbance upon which the Roman religion rests. Many 
numina survived to a later age, quite as vague and in- 
definite as they were at the beginning ; so, too, that orig- 
inal impelling and compelling fear manifested itself re- 
peatedly in the most startling ways, constantly revealed 

322 



RELIGION OF THE ROMANS 

in the pages of Livy's descriptions of innumerable prodi- 
gies and expiations. Furrina, a goddess of the state 
pantheon, who had a priest of her own and a special 
festival in her honor, remained to the end a vague numen, 
whose nature and functions in Cicero's day were a pure 
matter of conjecture. We read of a ceremony connected 
with the worship of the household in historic times that 
well reflects the early anxiety and scruple that filled the 
Hfe of the primitive Latin in the midst of the wild forests 
and in the presence of imposing mountains. Following 
the birth of a child three gods were thought of as guard- 
ing the home against the intrusion by night of the half- 
wild deity, Silvanus ; three men took their places as guards 
at the threshold and with the symbols of the three pro- 
tecting divinities the one hews at the threshold with his 
axe, the second pounds with his pestle, and the third 
sweeps with his branches or twigs that serve as a broom — 
all intended to keep away the malevolent numen, Silvanus, 
who never in the later history of Roman religion passed 
into the higher rank of a real god. The guardian deities, 
Intercidona, Pilumnus and Deverra, likewise remained 
shadowy numina such as originally had filled the life of 
the primitive settler before he had even invented names 
for these spirits, before he had lifted himself out of a 
life of extreme superstition and uncertainty into a clearer 
knowledge of gods and a clearer conception of his proper 
relations with those gods. But gradually through a deeper 
consciousness and a riper experience gods were evolved 
out of the numina, the regular succession of the seasons 
inspired festivals, the worship upon the fields and in the 
home was highly developed, and all of these elements were 
essential material ready at hand to serve as the basis for 
Rome's State worship. 

Numa might be said to have given Rome her " re- 
ligious charter," so deep and profound upon the whole 
subsequent religious history of the city was the influence 

323 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

of this organization of beliefs and practices on behalf 
of the State which we associate with the name of the 
second traditional king whose rule, following the chron- 
ology of Livy, fell within the years of 717-674 B.C. Rome 
had her gods, the gods of the fathers and ancestors of 
the Romans, who had all the sanction of an ancient, 
hereditary belief. Rome's gods, whether they became 
such at the time of Numa or before, represented a selec- 
tion from the larger number of gods worshiped upon 
the fields and in the home; these gods of the State were 
called her di indigeteSj or native divinities, and although 
the number of gods whose cults were adopted by the City- 
State during the centuries that followed, was great, yet 
the circle of original deities remained for over 500 years 
a closed circle, held in peculiar veneration. Although a 
matter of gradual growth, the final elaborate organization 
of state priesthoods, the incorporation into the body of 
state-ritual of earlier field and home cults and ceremonials 
for the divine protection of the corporate life of the com- 
munity was due — as all Roman tradition had it — to the 
master mind of a great statesman. Neither seer nor 
prophet, but a practical Roman, he laid the permanent 
foundations for the Roman state's Jus Divinum, that 
highly organized legal code defining all the relations be- 
tween man and his gods. The inherent Roman genius for 
order and discipline is no less apparent in all of this than 
a fundamental concept of reasonableness. 

The gods of the Roman people, the gods of the City- 
State, reflect very clearly the great, vital interests of a 
pastoral and agricultural community which was i concerned 
for the welfare of its cattle, the success of its crops, and 
the safety of its homes. The practical daily life, the 
struggle for existence, the strife with rival neighboring 
settlements are eloquently recorded in the names of divini- 
ties who had been closely identified with definite areas 
and who had presided over the life of their worshipers in 

324 



RELIGION OF THE ROMANS 

its totality. As gods of the state, they became the pro- 
tectors and guarantors of that new experiment in civic Hfe 
upon the banks of the Tiber, destined to such an ex- 
traordinary career. At a later time the credit for that 
miracle of growth and success was given to the gods by 
an unquestioning people whose firm, deep faith finds ex- 
pression in the eloquent preface of one of Rome's greatest 
historians; if it be allowed any people to consecrate its 
origins and to refer to the gods as their authors, the 
Roman people are entitled to such a glorification of their 
success in war. 

Representing a stage of evolution from the earlier 
numina of pre-history, these gods were not as yet definitely 
anthropomorphic, but as mysterious gods they exercised 
unlimited power within definite domains. There was 
among these departmental gods a clear and sharp differ- 
entiation and specialization of duties and functions, for 
the ripening grain, the harvest, the woodland and the 
forest, the flowers, the springs and rivers, the pastures, 
the mildew, the seed in the ground, the earth, the bound- 
aries of the field, fire, birth and death, the door-way and 
the hearth were among the spheres within which these 
divinities exercised their influence. Three gods, how- 
ever, loomed large and in Jupiter, Mars and Quirinus we 
recognize a superior and dominating quality that dis- 
tinguished them above all the rest. Jupiter, the great sky- 
god of light, of rain and of sunshine, whose favor was 
so essential for the fields and for the vineyards, who 
gave dramatic signs of approval or of disapproval through 
the thunder and the lightnings, was the one god far re- 
moved from the immediate environment of man which had 
given birth to his numerous other divinities. When the 
gods of the fields and of the home became state divinities, 
as state gods they assumed the responsibility for the com- 
mon welfare of all whose life was dependent upon the 
products of field and stream and who resided within the 

325 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

City-home within which they themselves had metaphori- 
cally taken up their own residence. 

Characterized chiefly by a Power which it was natural 
for the Romans to deify, these gods, " impersonal indi- 
vidualities," knew no plastic representations. The Roman 
showed little imagination about his gods, and he was as 
slightly concerned with their personality as he was with 
attachment of ethical qualities to them. Though nature- 
gods, there was no personification in any real sense of 
nature and her forces that we find here. The epithet of 
pater betrays no real sense of the fatherhood of god nor 
was there any revelation of human relationships between 
the gods. No fairy tales or mythologies sprang into 
existence as the expression of a speculative tendency, nor 
psalms and hymns as the lyrical outburst of religious 
emotion. There were no further creeds or dogmas except 
such as defined the provenance of these functional deities. 
Eminently practical, these gods were not the product of 
soaring phantasies about the stars, the sun and the moon, 
the storm, the ocean-roar or forest darkness; it was not 
a yearning of the spirit for the infinite, it was not a lifting 
of self over the mountains to the skies that suggested the 
nature of these gods. Least of all was the sublimity of 
the Hebraic phrase present : " In the beginning God 
created the heavens and the earth," nor the consciousness 
of a cosmogony in which the spirit of God moved through 
the darkness and created light. Yet these gods were 
sufficient unto the needs of Numa's day as they carried 
all the responsibilities of a narrow, realistic universe in 
becoming the divine champions of the City-State. Out 
of a deep anxiety they had been born, and upon the fields 
and in the home the flame of a genuine religious feeling 
burned upon the altars, where the ritualistic fulfillment 
of religious obligations was scrupulously observed. What 
degree of sentiment or enthusiasm there existed is beyond 
our ken. But the state supplemented the poverty of the 

326 



RELIGION OF THE ROMANS 

god-idea with an elaboration of ritual which reacted upon 
the worship in the home and which through ceremony 
cultivated deeper reverence. It was toward the side of 
ritual, for better or for worse, that Rome threw all her 
influence; it was toward the side of ritualistic develop- 
ment that her instinct carried her. Through all the sub- 
sequent phases of the god-idea, through all the later 
changes in feeling toward those gods, the machinery of 
worship grew, — an imposing institution, at times threaten- 
ing to lull to rest and to smother real religious feeling, 
but to the end carrying the burden laid upon it. Rome, 
by the nature of her people, was predestined to a formal- 
ism that at the very beginning was antithetic to any 
spiritualization of her state-religion. More than that, 
" man's obligatory part in the ritual of the state was abso- 
lutely nil," since the state assigned the duties and respon- 
sibilities of dealing with the gods of the state on behalf 
of the state to the properly constituted authorities. 

Flamens, augurs, Fetial priests, Vestals, pontiffs, the 
Luperci, the Salii, the Arval brotherhood, — in part ante- 
dating Numa, to be sure, — conducted the state worship 
at altars, in sacred precincts and in groves. So complete 
was the organization of these priesthoods whose function 
It was to communicate with the gods and learn their will, 
that they almost sufficed throughout the later religious 
history of Rome which added but very few major priest- 
hoods' Prayers, sacrifices, festivals, solemn vota and no 
less solemn lustrations, dedications of sacred sites, all re- 
ligious ceremonial exhibited an exact orderliness that re- 
mained as the very essence of Roman religion. A char- 
acteristic narrative was told of the king Tullus Hostilius, 
successor of Numa, of whom it was said that afflicted 
with a fever, he lost his former high spirit of independ- 
ence and sought to " get religion." Consulting the com- 
mentaries of Numa, he became deeply interested in some 
occult rites to Jupiter Elicius but was struck down by 

327 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

lightning, by the offended deity, because of some error 
in the ritual. There lay danger in the slightest infrac- 
tion of the rules, lest the pax deorum might be disturbed. 
No Brahman or Pharisee was more scrupulous than the 
ancient Roman with whom the idea of Pietas (in its 
religions sense) — a permanent contribution to Roman 
religion — came to clear consciousness, synonymous with 
the due fulfillment of all the details of worship. So 
strong was this feeling that we know that at least on. four 
occasions the solemnity of the Latin Festival was inter- 
rupted because evil omens and oversight in the conduct 
of the ceremony threatened the validity of the religious 
performance. 

Another striking result is recorded in Quintilian, who 
writes that in his day the songs of the Salii were scarce 
understood by the priests themselves, who, however, were 
obligated to employ the ancient sacred rites, handed down 
from generation to generation, by a religious feeling 
which forbade any modernization of those prayers. In 
the city of the Four Regions of Numa there were sites 
made over to the gods on the hills and in the valleys at 
points of significance to the city-life; not that all the di- 
vinities had their own sanctuaries, nor that there were 
temples (in the true sense) erected as yet to any, but in- 
cense burned on altars and in the Forum the god of im- 
memorial antiquity, Saturnus, received worship, on the 
Capitoline there was a shrine for Jupiter Feretrius, on 
the Palatine the old festival of the Parilia was conducted, 
Vesta had her rude-covered hut to guard the eternal fire 
and a gateway sufficed for Janus. First fruits of the 
fields and of the trees, wreaths, incense, sacrificial cakes, 
offerings of milk, beans and spelt were the favorite offer- 
ings, although animal sacrifices — notably of the pig, sheep 
and ox — were also doubtless ancient. As characteristic 
of the simplicity of the early state worship of Numa's 
day I may quote Ovid's account of the festival of the 

328 



RELIGION OF THE ROMANS 

Terminalia as it was celebrated in the counJ:ry districts 
in his own day ; though a few modifications of the ancient 
country festival appear, in general it maintains the ancient 
spirit : 

" When the night hath passed, let the god who- by his 
landmark divides the fields be worshiped with accustomed 
honors. O Terminus, whether thou art a stone or a stock 
sunk deep in the ground, even from the time of the 
ancients dost thou possess divinity. Thee the two owners 
of the fields crown with chaplets from their opposite 
sides; to thee they each present two garlands and two 
cakes. An altar is erected; to this the peasant country- 
woman brings on a bit of broken clay fire taken from the 
warm hearths. An old man cuts up the fire- wood and 
splitting it piles it on high. . . . While he is arousing 
the first flames with dried bark, a boy stands by and 
holds in his hands broad baskets. When he has thrice 
thrown fruits of the earth out of the baskets into the 
midst of the flames, his little daughter offers sliced honey- 
combs. Others hold wine; . . . the crowd all arrayed 
in white looks on and maintains a religious silence. The 
common landmark is also sprinkled with the blood of a 
slain lamb ; and the god makes no complaint when a suck- 
ing pig Is given to him. The simple-minded neighbors 
meet and celebrate this feast and sing thy praises, O holy 
Terminus ! '* 

Such is the charming picture that we have, and in 
the rustic ministrants we see the predecessors of the king, 
the state flamens and the Vestal virgins. The state was 
but the household on a larger scale and the king had by 
analogy there the secular and religious authority of the 
pater familias In his own smaller home. The priests 
of the state did not become a hierarchical caste but were 
simply administrative officials with the pontifex maxi- 
mus as their august head, who ultimately was vested with 
supreme authority In all matters of religion. Never were 

329 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

the interests of a state, secular and religious, more closely 
bound together, never were religion and patriotism more 
completely fused. 

This extended account of the religion of Numa as 
we call it, has been essential in order to be able to follow 
the more readily the whole subsequent history of Roman 
religion. The early concept of deus, the early original 
organization of the methods of worship, were the true 
expression of genuine Roman religion, never completely 
lost through all of the transformations that time, wider 
experience, and contacts with other people brought about. 

Before the close of the regal period Rome increased 
her original state pantheon by the adoption of several new 
gods whose cults had been in previous existence in other 
towns in Latium and in southern Etruria. Before the 
close of the century that marked the end of kingship in 
Rome, the city had become mistress of Latium and this 
military, political advance had brought about an exten- 
sion of Rome's economic and social horizon. Trade rela- 
tions had been established with other communities, a re^ 
organization of the cavalry had been effected, there had 
developed in the city an artisan class, and Rome had her 
first experience with the dangerous game of international 
politics. But this new situation required the friendly co- 
operation of new gods, because the native gods of Numa 
could not by any extension of their restricted functions 
become the patron deities of these new interests. The 
first adoption of new gods into Rome cannot be ascribed 
to religious tolerance but must be explained as due to the 
limitations of the old religious conceptions. There was 
opportunity for growth for Roman religion from within 
by the adoption of epithets and through the worship of 
abstractions, but the polytheism of Rome permitted an ex- 
pansion by accretions from without and such expansion did 
no violence to accepted religious principles. On the con- 
trary, the naivete of this process of accretions from with- 

330 



RELIGION OF THE ROMANS 

out was in entire harmony with the spirit of the old Roman 
reHgion which not only permitted but demanded divine 
protection over every occupation, over every interest and 
over all endeavor of life whether individual or public. 

From Tibur, therefore, came the cult of Hercules, 
from Tusculum, the worship of Castor, from Falerii the 
goddess Minerva, and from Aricia the new divinity, 
Diana. The arrival of these new-comer gods was attended 
with no emotional disturbance; Diana was an Italic 
divinity, Minerva though subject to Etruscan influences 
in Falerii was in origin Italic, while Hercules and Castor 
— though in origin Greek — had become so thoroughly 
Latinized in Tibur and Tusculum that Rome regarded 
them as native and established their altars within the 
sacred line of the pomerium, that inviolate boundary 
line between native and foreign religious ideas. There 
was something of kinship between these new divinities 
and the family of older gods, and accidental considera- 
tions resulted in the establishment of Diana's and Miner- 
va's cults on the Aventine outside the pomerium. Later 
Roman traditions played fast and loose with the facts of 
these adoptions; Castor and Pollux, for example, were 
represented in legend — as we read in Dionysius of Hali- 
carnassus — as having led the Romans to victory at the 
battle of Lake Regillus early in the republican period; 
after the battle, these two splendid gods, in shining armor, 
fair to behold and of imposing stature, appeared in the 
Roman Forum where at the Spring of Juturna they an- 
nounced the Roman victory, disappearing as miraculously 
as they had appeared to the astonished Roman gaze; 
legend found no trouble in crediting their actual observa- 
tion by mortal eyes and pointed to the handsome temple 
of the 5th century as evidence for the incredulous of 
their arrival at that time. Castor, however, in point of 
fact came to Rome with the reorganization of the cavalry 
in the time of Servius Tullius galloping in on horse-back, 

331 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

as it were, to become the patron saint of the knights. 
Rome did not at random officially accept all Latin cults, 
but permitted the private worship of many deities not 
incorporated within her state pantheon. But in the case 
of Castor, not satisfied with the preparedness visible in 
her armed horsemen, she needs must have besides the 
divine sanction of an invisible god for her ambitions. To 
Diana there was built a temple on the Aventine, as the 
common sanctuary of all the Latins. But the significance 
of the cult of Diana lies rather in the temple structure 
which contained a statue, for this departure meant a great 
break with older traditions. 

This break was intensified by the erection of the Etrus- 
can temple on the Capitoline to the new triad of Jupiter, 
Juno and Minerva; this temple also held a sensuous repre- 
sentation of a god, Jupiter Optimus Maximus. At the 
very moment that Rome was triumphant, politically, her 
older concept of god was on the point of vanishing. Rome 
was on the threshold of that career of conquest by which 
she in time gained the whole world, but unconsciously 
she was in danger of losing her own soul with a sur- 
render of her old-time gods and her former simplicities 
of worship. The Etruscan domination that came to a 
political end with the inauguration of a republic, per- 
sisted in the influence of the temple which paradoxically 
rose serene on the Capitol as the very centre of public 
worship and the centre of republican aspirations. The 
inevitable revolution in religious thought came in due 
season. 

Rome had established a precedent in the inauguration 
of the cults of Hercules, Castor, Minerva and Diana that 
made the adoption of Greek cults during the next period, 
from circa 500 to 200 B.C., seem a logical step. The 
Sibylline books, which had arrived in Rome early in 
the republican period and were cherished in the temple 
of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, were responsible for the 

332 



RELIGION OF THE ROMANS 

seemingly harmless, apparently analogous adoption of 
the worship of Greek divinities, Apollo, Demeter, Hermes, 
Poseidon, Asclepios, Pluto and Persephone. Real crises, 
such as a grain famine, the need of carrying grain across 
the seas, pestilence, and destruction of a part of the 
city-wall by lightning were the sufficient causes for con- 
sulting this new body of religious prescriptions to meet 
the ills for which the old gods — in the nature of things — 
could not furnish the remedy. This did not necessarily 
carry with it loss of confidence in older divinities within 
their anciently defined spheres, but was equivalent to 
increasing the state's total of insurance through payment 
of premiums in the form of gifts and sacrifices to the 
newly accepted divine protectors. 

But the influence of the Greek concept of anthropo- 
morphic deities spread insidiously throughout the whole 
structure of Roman religious beliefs so that in the course 
of three hundred years the rank growth that had grown 
from the seed, arresting the power of an independent 
native growth, all but choked the earlier conception of a 
mysterious power working in the world. That transfor- 
mation of the old Roman god-idea through mythologies 
— partly creditable, but in eqoial part, discreditable) — 
through statues which as Varro recognized took away 
fear of god, and finally through the Grcecus ritiis, spared 
only a few of the native gods ; in time the Greek epidemic 
developed a feverish passion for identifying the old with 
the new (sometimes on the basis of similarities but often 
on the most arbitrary basis) and for merging the Italic 
gods in the more human but less mysterious Greek di- 
vinities. The aesthetic and spiritual values of anthropo- 
morphic deity were lost upon the Roman in large degree 
before 200 b.c. ; Rome introduced Greek lectisternia and 
sup plicati ones, even while forgetting the native invisible 
ninnen, who had worked with force in a particular de- 
partment of human life and who had represented a nobler 

333 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

conception and for the Roman a far more effective con- 
ception of divinity. In 399 B.C., in pursuance of the 
directions of the SibylHne books, a Greek lectisternium 
was for the first time conducted in Rome ; images of gods 
and goddesses in human form recHned on their couches 
and appeared to partake of dinner, in human need of food 
and drink. What made this doubly significant was that 
the Senate had recourse to this device for bringing to an 
end a pestilence, admitting thereby the insufficiency of the 
old cults, of old native forms of prayer and sacrifice. In 
217 B.C. a lectisternium on a grand scale was conducted, 
and it was a virtual '* turning point in the religious his- 
tory of Rome," for at six couches twelve great gods 
were seen with no distinction between native gods and 
Greek divinities ; the twelve gods thereafter were the cen- 
tral figures of the Grseco-Roman pantheon which resulted 
from this contact between Greece and Rome. Long be- 
fore Rome conquered Greece politically Greece had com- 
pleted the conquest of Rome religiously — a phenomenon 
second in importance only to the astounding religious 
revival of Augustus' day. But so completely lost in Greek 
gods were the Roman, that Roman scholarship of the first 
century B.C. had the utmost difficulty in distinguishing the 
original outlines and qualities. 

This abandonment of the old theology, which neces- 
sarily involved the disappearance of many of the old cults, 
was hastened by the events of the Second Punic War dur- 
ing which prodigies of an unparalleled and terrifying 
nature were reported from all over Italy. The dreari- 
ness of war, protracted almost through the entire third 
century, with the Samnites, with Pyrrhus and with the 
Carthaginians, resulted in religious depression and shook 
the foundations of the entire structure of organized wor- 
ship. Ships were seen in the skies, a temple of Hope was 
struck by lightning, divination tablets shrunk, statues 
and shields sweated blood, bloody ears of grain fell into 

334 



RELIGION OF THE ROMANS 

reapers' baskets, armed forces were seen storming the 
Janiculum, and in terror, in bewildered uncertainty as to 
where God might be or what his true nature was, the 
Roman state found its chief rehgious consolation in the 
foreign books of oracles resting in Jupiter's great temple. 
Most extraordinary offerings were made to the gods, a 
ver sacrum was declared and human sacrifices of Greeks 
and Gauls were made. The hysteria grew and the Roman 
rites fell into disuse, not only in private but in public 
also; in the Forum and on the Capitol crowds of women 
sacrificed according to new rites and prayed to the gods 
in modes new to Rome. This rebellion against the re- 
ligion of the state was stayed by the defeat and death 
of Hasdrubal, when finally the shadows seemed dispelled 
from Latium. The Senate expressed its joy through the 
medium of a Greek ceremony, a supplication, and the 
people's con-fidence in their gods was temporarily restored 
by this success while thanksgivings were offered to their 
" immortal " gods — Grseco-Roman gods to be sure, but 
gods, none the less, who seemed to have saved the state. 
But the arch-enemy, whom Rome accused of having 
no fear of the gods, no religious scruples, who had swept 
through the Italian cities like a flame through the pine 
forests, remained in Italy in defiance, as it were, of the 
gods in whom Rome still placed her trust. Finally, it 
was the Sibylline books, again, that declared that the 
foreign foe could be driven from Italy only if the Idaean 
Mother were brought from Pessinus to Rome. With the 
adoption of the worship of the Phrygian goddess, Magna 
Mater, in 204 B.C., the last chapter was written in the 
religious drama of Rome of these three hundred years 
between 500-200 b.c. With the expulsion of Hannibal, 
Rome's suprem.acy in Italy was undisputed but not only 
had she in the interim lost her own religion but by re- 
ceiving Cybele within the pomerium she effaced all dis- 
tinctions between the Graeco-Roman deities and foreign 

335 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

gods, who were now free to settle upon her soil. With 
great state and ceremony, in which equites, senators, 
plebs, mothers, daughters, Vestals took part, the stranger 
divinity was hailed with gladness and the image of a 
sacred stone conveyed with pomp into the temple of Vic- 
tory. The very antithesis of the sobriety of Roman ritual, 
the ecstatic ceremony of mutilated priests of Magna 
Mater found a welcome in Rome which thus practically 
became the worthy retreat of every divinity. The mock- 
ery of this rejoicing was unconsciously rendered com- 
plete by a celebration of another lectisternium, that opiate 
which Rome had come to find so indispensable. 

As we come to the next period in Roman religious 
history, 200 B.C. to Augustus, we find a condition of re- 
ligious unrest which must have been fatal had there not 
been a saving element of genuine religious feeling that 
flowed as a deep stream underneath the surface phe- 
nomena. The gods had become so Humanized that they 
were upon a low level of humanity while the acceptance 
of the exotic cult of the Great Mother into the body of 
Roman religious organization afforded only a temporary 
relief. The religion of the state was at its lowest ebb 
of meaning, influence and inspiration. It gained no new 
informing spirit to illumine or to exalt the accepted 
Graeco-Roman conception of gods; the old notion of 
religious obligations was enshrined in ceremonies that 
became fossilized, while priesthoods were involved in the 
degradation of base politics. Temples fell into ruin, 
priesthoods were vacant for years, a debauchee was elected 
(209 B.C.) Hamen Dialis in order that the taboos restrict- 
ing the life of that great priest might lead to his reforma- 
tion; the story of Cato is well known that he marveled 
how one haruspex upon meeting another could refrain 
from scornful, ironical laughter. The pontiffs had 
neglected the calendar to the mischief of the festivals. 
Varro feared the old Roman religion would perish through 

336 



RELIGION OF THE ROMANS 

neglect ; Sallust satirically contrasted the men of his own 
day with their ancestors, religiosissumi morfales. With 
unerring accuracy the stage attacked two fundamental 
defects: the metamorphosis of the Roman gods into di- 
vinities with human frailties did not escape the cleverness 
of the comic poet, who did not shrink from representing 
the amours of Jupiter upon the stage; equally blase was 
the tragedy that openly proclaimed the indifference of 
the gods to the fate of mankind. 

Such degradation of the gods and denial of their 
power left to the orthodox-minded after 200 B.C. who in- 
herited the evil consequences of the previous period, little 
comfort. He had the refuge of his home with its cults 
where religion " had placed a certain consecration upon 
the simple life of the family," and during the following 
150 years the household cults escaped the corrupting 
influence of ridicule and of indifference. But the state 
maintained its soul-less machinery of worship all the time 
it was advancing beyond the seas to Mediterranean em- 
pire ; and all the power of the state was back of traditional 
forms of worship that seemed to the unimaginative Ro- 
man the very essence of religion. But emotional, spiritual 
and intellectual rebellions manifested themselves in Diony- 
siac orgies, In Pythagoreanism, in Stoicism and Epicur- 
eanism and in the private worship of gods from the 
Orient. The dignity of Roman ceremonials could not 
satisfy the deeper craving for emotional worship, the 
slncerer yearning to know the truth about God and the 
desire to be in closer communion with him. Constraint 
of habit prevented the state from seizing opportunities 
that existed for its own spiritual reformation. 

Stoic and Epicurean philosophies of religion breathed 
a freer spirit, bound neither by the scruple of cult nor by 
fear of the gods. Each had rediscovered God — one in 
the eternal fire, the other in the remote intermundia. The 
state religion might have been illumined by adoption of 
22 337 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

the Stoic concept of Fate, and from Stoicism the state 
theology might have acquired a pro founder understanding 
of Providence. With all of the bitter Epicurean denuncia- 
tion of the old conception of providential divine regard, 
the Epicurean theory of god had the power, though not 
the opportunity, of purging the old polytheism of its un- 
worthy mythologies and of raising the Graeco-Roman 
gods to a more exalted level. A pontifex maximus had 
declared it expedient to deceive the masses because the 
truth of philosophic speculation was harmful — which 
meant that it was dangerous for the organized systems 
of worship. Thus, because of the self-sufficiency of the 
state institution, there was but little reaction upon the 
religion of the state from these philosophies of religion. 
Philosophic speculation did not release man from the 
necessity of remaining a conformist in worship; while 
mental reservations made such external conformity a 
possibility, the drama of salvation was enacted only in 
individual souls and the magnificent state machinery of 
religion remained an imposing institution placed above 
the laws of reason. 

It was the strict and ceremonious observation of all 
of the minutiae of worship that made up the background 
of this period of unrest, during which the state main- 
tained all the traditions of the letter with no regard to 
the decline in faith. In the absence of the spirit that 
had originally prompted and animated the ceremonials, 
the inheritance of a multiplication of formulae and of an 
elaboration of prayers hardly contributed to the vitality 
of those ceremonies. The votum, a contract between man 
and god, and implying the strongest belief in divinity, 
cast in legal mold, lost its validity in an age of skepticism 
and distrust. Lustrationes, which once had restored the 
disturbed equilibrium between men and gods and reestab- 
lished the pax deorum, became a spectacle for the eye 
without appealing to the heart. The sunrise offering of 

338 



RELIGION OF THE ROMANS 

fruits and incense, the wearing of wreaths of grain, the 
solemn '' procession of victims . . . round the fields, 
driven by a garlanded crowd, carrying olive branches and 
chanting " retained for the Ambarvalia, at best, a senti- 
ment of affection. Sacrifices, whether honorific, piacular 
or sacramental became a sham, with a decline in belief 
in the providential regard of the gods — and the char- 
acteristically Roman scrupulous care exercised at sacrifices 
could not save such ceremonies from debasement; there 
were the strictest regulations concerning the sex, age 
and color of the victim, the dress and veiled head of 
the priests, the silence of the bystanders — all of which 
were significant in an age of belief, but equally a delusion 
in a time that was threatened with a collapse of old 
beliefs. Such an age hardly required the services of the 
Indigitanventa or pontiffs' artificially elaborated lists of 
the names of the gods and methods of properly addressing 
them. These books grew originally out of the " old 
national belief in the ubiquity of a world of spirits," but 
were out of harmony with an age that required simplicity 
rather than over-development of ritual. Varro had, to 
the amusement of St. Augustine, enumerated the gods 
who watched over man's life in all its details from the 
time of conception to the time of death. 

The age was out of sympathy, too, with the multi- 
plicity of prayers that previous conditions had required. 
These showed little desire to conform one's life to the 
will of the gods and had been offered for material rather 
than for moral blessings. The mumbling of prayers by 
priests who performed their state function in religion 
purely through ritual, was the final touch revealing the 
paradoxical betrayal of real religious feeling into the 
possession of ceremonial and cult. Lucretius had elo- 
quently protested that piety did not consist in being often 
seen with veiled head turning to a stone, approaching 
every altar, falling prostrate on the ground, spreading 

339 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

out the palms before the shrines of the gods, sprinkling 
the altars with much blood of beasts and linking vow 
to vow, but so deeply fixed was this belief in the state 
ritual that it survived this period of tribulation and in the 
time of Augustus piety was once more defined in the old 
terms of right performance rather than by any new con- 
cept of the right spirit. Even the enlightened Cicero, 
" although he' could not believe in the old theology, put 
the jtcs divinum in the forefront," and boasted of Rome's 
superiority in religion, i.e., the cult of the gods. 

But even during the time of apparent disintegration, 
ritual had carried along the burden of religion and in- 
sensibly forces had been at work that resulted in the 
salvation of the Grseco-Roman gods. The Greek gods 
had arrived in Rome at the time of their decadence, and 
the uncultured Roman could appreciate only the baser 
qualities of that theology. As Rome, herself, however, 
became tutored in the finer arts and feelings, through the 
processes of Greek education, the Olympian gods once 
more became brilliant deities to the imagination of the 
orthodox. The deplorable loss of faith of the preceding 
period was followed by a revival under Augustus. The 
glowing poetry of the period represents these human 
Graeco-Roman gods, even with their humanity, far above 
the level of man, exalted and truly divine — gods in whose 
living presence there was actual, deep belief and to whom 
prayer could rise with the spontaneity of an unques- 
tioning veneration. Contemporary poetry thrills with a 
recovery of the conviction in the immortality of the 
gods — and from the beginning Jupiter had known of 
Rome's greatness, at length about to be realized. " Pro- 
tect us by thy might. Great God our King," expresses 
a sentiment that trembled upon pagan lips and came 
from pagan hearts which believed in an omnipotent father 
who from azure heights gazed calmly down upon his 
chosen people and in whose justice their destinies were 

340 



RELIGION OF THE ROMANS 

safe. Jupiter came as near to infinity as it was possible 
for a finite, nature god to come. The academic debate 
of Cicero's De Natura Deorum is far removed from 
Virgil's passionate belief in a divine sanction assured the 
state and pales in the glow of enthusiasm that resulted 
under Augustus of a revival of many old priesthoods, 
a rebuilding of many temples and a revitalization of ritual 
more ornate than ever before. 

The gods whose neglect had brought many a woe upon 
Hesperia in her sorrow, were now duly worshiped by 
augurs, qulndecemvlri, Vestals and pontiffs, while in 
the home the domestic cults of Vesta and of the Penates 
were renewed with deeper confidence. The continuance 
of morning prayers and of libations to household deities 
at meals had kept the flame of religious belief alive 
during all the storm and stress of state affairs. The 
intimately beloved Faunus of the fields along with goat- 
footed Satyrs and nymphs occupied his haunts to the 
delight of rustics, when Pan shook the piny covering of 
his semi-savage head as he raced over the reeds with 
his sensuously curved lips In order not to cease his wood- 
land melody — all, in spite of Lucretius' skepticism and 
Plutarch's elegy. Festivals proceeded more orderly with 
Cassar's correction of the calendar and even In the " light 
artistic half -belief ''of the poet from Sulmo we can 
readily read the sanctlfication of patriotism for which 
Augustus was striving. 

The " Father of his country " directed the stream 
of religious belief In channels of devotion to the new 
empire, by a rededlcatlon of the Arval brotherhood to 
the imperial cult, by a conspicuous favoritism for the 
cult of Mars the Avenger, for the cult of the deified 
Caesar and of the Palatine Apollo. The festival of the 
Parllla — maintaining an unbroken contact with the days 
of Rome's beginnings — the Secular games, celebrated 
with unparalleled splendor and charged with a new spirit, 

341 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

fortified the patriotism of the new era. This patriotism 
had come out of the travail of a hundred years and saw 
its justification in blessings of secure peace. 

But there was impending a new cult that presently 
cast its ominous shadow over these auspicious days. Out 
of the 500 years' acquaintance with gods, human in 
aspect though not mortal, Rome finally came to take the 
step that Greece had taken before, of deifying man; from 
the worship of god-men the step was easy to the adora- 
tion of the man-god. Ennius had 200 years before trans- 
lated that baneful romance of Euhemerus which had 
taught the mortal origin of all gods, and Emperor worship 
became a conspicuous centre of all state religious cere- 
monies. Though there eventuated the cult of Roma 
AeternGj rich with possibilities, the days for the worship 
of abstractions had long since passed, and marble temples 
and imposing ceremonies could not guarantee life to 
cults that failed to correspond to a growing yearning for 
a more personal contact with God. 

The earlier deification of such abstractions as Honor, 
Virtue, Concord, Faith, had given a religious sanction 
to these moralities but redemption of Roman society, 
private or public, had not been secured thereby — either 
in the first century B.C., as is abundantly testified by 
Lucretius, Sallust and Cicero, or in the first century a.d., 
as Juvenal knew only too well. It had not at an earlier 
time prevented the breaking of a treaty with Tarentum 
nor had it rnitigated the horrors of the Civil War. Horace 
had indulged the vain hope that these cults had borne 
permanent fruitage in the hearts of men, but all Roman 
cult had the fatal defect of not inspiring an individual 
sense of right or wrong. " The Inside of the Cup " had 
to be purged as Lucretius ardently exclaimed but this 
reforming principle found no entrance into the circle of 
Roman religious ideas. Cicero believed pietas and justitia 
to be complementary; the binding force of the oath in 

342 



RELIGION OF THE ROMANS , 

social and political life was strong; the disciplinary value 
of ritual was great and the sense of responsibility it cul- 
tivated was an important contribution to virtus, but neither 
humility nor a contrite spirit were characteristic products 
of the Roman's relations with his gods. The vain re- 
grets over the disappearance of the old simplicities of 
worship far outweighed in Roman consciousness any 
sting of remorse over the real secret of the failure of 
Roman cult and ritual. Cicero's lament that no one 
prayed to the gods for virtus did not recall Roman re- 
ligion to its own reformation. St. Augustine's observa- 
tion that the pagan Roman did not pray for immortality 
called attention to another shortcoming that an age given 
more and more to otherworldliness could not condone. 
It was not in religion that the orthodox Roman sought 
abiding peace; the comfort and the solace that the world 
craved in the first and second centuries a.d. were not 
there. 

Cult had carried Roman religion along the stream of 
time but the insufficiency of its content was not concealed 
by the rich cloak that the Roman state wrapped about it. 
Rome had become more and more resplendent in the 
empire period with glittering temples of marble but all 
the externals of cult could not satisfy the growing spirit- 
ual yearning for a deeper and more personal knowledge 
of God and for a greater sanctity of life. Stoicism, 
Pythagoreanism, Mithraism and Christianity were all 
better equipped to meet the human need. Roman religion 
could not affect any real synthesis of these variously ideal 
systems with itself; her own tolerance of a variety of 
religious beliefs was conditioned by a conformity in wor- 
ship — an impossible barrier for Christianity — yet one in- 
evitably set up by a state that had finally come to Emperor 
worship and State worship as the final expression of its 
religious aspiration. To the end, cult, the real expression 
of the Roman genius, was in the fore- front of Roman 

343 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

religion; the inherent binding quality of religio, manifest 
in ritual, had long ago cramped Rome's religions imagina- 
tion ; it now abstracted all real liberty from Rome's vision 
of religious duties that must needs remain subservient 
to the state. With the inability of the cult to carry the 
new triumphant ideas, the gods of Rome faded in the 
twilight of unbelief and the paganism of the Eternal City 
became as a tale that is told. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Emil Aust: Die Religion der Rbmer, Miinster i. W. (Aschendorfif, 
1899). 

Cyril Bailey: The Religion of Ancient Rome, Chicago (The Open 
Court Publishing Co., 1907). 

G. BoissiER : La Religion Romaine d'Auguste aux Antonins, Paris 
(Hachette et Cie, 2 vols. 1874), 

J. B. Carter: The Religion of Numa, New York (The Macmillan 
Co., igo6). 

J. B. Carter: The Religious Life of Ancient Rome, Boston (Hough- 
ton, Mifflin & Co., 1911). 

F. Cumont: Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism, Chicago (The 
Open Court Publishing Co., 1911). 

F. Cumont: Astrology and Religion Among the Greeks and Ro- 
mans, New York (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1912). 

W. Warde Fowler: The Roman Festivals, London (Macmillan & 
Co., 1908). 

W. Warde Fowler : The Religious Experience of the Roman People, 
London (Macmillan & Co., 1911). 

W. Warde Fowler: Roman Ideas of Deity, London (Macmillan 
& Co., 1914). 

T. R. Glover: The Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Em- 
pire, London (Methuen & Co., 1909). 

A. DeMarchi: It Culto Privato di Roma Antica, Milano (Hoepli, 
1896). 

C. H. Moore: The Religious Thought of the Greeks, c. vii, "Vic- 
tory of Greece over Rome ;" c. viii, " Oriental Religions," Cam- 
bridge (Harvard University Press, 1916). 

S. Reinach : Orpheus: A General History of Religions, c. iii, " The 
Greeks and the Romans," New York (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 
1909). 

Georg Wissowa: Religion u. Kultus der R'dmer, Munich (C. H. 
Beck, 1912). 



344 



CHAPTER XII 

THE RELIGION OF THE TEUTONS 
BY AMANDUS JOHNSON 

The purpose of this brief sketch is to outline the main 
features of the religion of the primitive Germanic peoples, 
as it appears (from available sources) in the first cen- 
turies of our era, not to reconstruct earlier forms nor 
to discuss individual theories of origin or possible lines 
of development. 

By religion I here mean man's total conceptions of 
the world beyond his material environment and material 
self, in other words, " man's attitude towards the un- 
known," not necessarily including a spiritual relation with 
a higher power. Under this head (of religion) will fall 
two divisions, mythology and theology. 

Mythology (without any reference to the popular 
meaning as to the truth or untruth of the conceptions in 
question) includes: (i) the theory and histo-ry of crea- 
tion '{cosmogony) ; (2) the arrangement, order and man- 
agement of the world {cosmology) ; (3) the transmigra- 
tion of souls, the life after this, the end of the world 
and final judgment {eschatology) . Theology on the other 
hand — possible of application only in higher forms of 
religion — includes: (i) the theory of man's relation to 
the gods and indirectly his relation to his fellow-man, in 
other words, cult, rites, ethics (sacrifices, prayers, man- 
ner of life, etc.) ; (2) and, in the case of highly civilized 
peoples, a systematic or philosophical arrangement of re- 
ligious conceptions (this being absent in primitive re- 
ligions is found only to a limited extent in Scandinavian 
Religion, the so-called Norse Mythology, as presented 
in the Edda). 

345 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

A kind of dualism permeates Teutonic religion. Life 
or spirit and matter were coexisting and eternal; there 
were two elements, fire and water; two conditions or 
states, heat and cold ; two kinds of good powers or gods, 
the Vanir and Aesir (the gods proper) ; two kinds of 
evil powers, the Thursar and the J dinar (the giants 
proper), etc., — other examples will appear in the follow- 
ing paragraphs. 

No other primitive religion is so logical and conse- 
quential in its development along its basic idea, and as we 
shall see, is singularly in accord with modern scientific 
thought in its fundamental conception about the origin of 
the universe, namely the reaction of heat and cold. 

As in the case of many other religions, several ages 
or periods can be distinguished : ( i ) the age of chaos, 

(2) the first period of creation with the age of bliss, 

(3) the second period of creation or the age of growth 
and development, (4) and finally the destruction and the 
new age. 

The religion sprang from the soul of the people, was 
an outgrowth of their " inner life '' and reflects their 
longing for spiritual and mystic communion with nature 
and " the supernatural world." In their religion we thus 
have a key to their nature ; a mirror of their inmost self. 
It is therefore an interesting and important product that 
cannot be neglected by any student of the civilization of 
England, of Germany or of the Scandinavian countries 
(and, shall I say, of the United States of America, the 
civilization of which is largely a child of the above- 
mentioned nations?).^ 

The cosmic conceptions of the early Teutons were 
briefly as follows : Before " the morning of time " *' there 
was neither sand nor lake nor cool billows; there was 

* The writer, some years ago an adherent of what might be called 
the " wanderlust " theory, championed by many scholars of the last 
century and of today, is now firmly convinced of the tenability of 
the "spontaneous theory." 

346 



THE RELIGION OF THE TEUTONS 

neither earth nor lofty heaven." But there was a gaping 
or yawning abyss called Ginnungagap on opposite sides of 
which, to the north and south, were two worlds, Mms- 
pellsheim (the home of heat) and Niflheim (the home of 
mist or cold). In the midst of the latter was the great 
spring Hvergelmir (the noisy kettle), whence flowed 
twelve streams (Elivagar) southward towards Ginnunga- 
gap, On their course through the regions of eternal cold 
the waters of these streams froze and during unnumbered 
ages layer was added to layer. But the forces of heat 
were also at work in the world of fire. Sparks thence 
never ceased flying and with increasing size and power 
they crossed the abyss and fell on the ice fields of southern 
Niflheim. The ice began to melt and the water to drip. 
The spirit, which was embedded in the ice and which 
gave it a salty taste, was liberated. The result was a 
living being Ymir, the first of the giants and of living 
things (the evil power thus being earlier than the good). 
A cow, Authhumbla, also sprang into life from the con- 
tact of heat and cold and from her milk Ymir obtained 
his nourishment. 

The cow, on the other hand, lived from the salty ice- 
blocks which she licked. Thereby other creative forces 
came into operation. The purer spirit in the hardened 
element was set free. On the first day of Authhumbla's 
licking a man's hair came out of the ice, the second day 
a man's head and, in the evening of the third day, a 
complete man stood forth, strong, large and handsome, 
the father of the gods, Buri by name. 

In the meantime the giant race began to multiply. 
During a heavy sleep Ymir fell into a sweat. A man and 
woman grew under his left arm and his feet brought 
forth a son. The giants increased rapidly and furnished 
a wife to Buri, who had three sons from his marriage, 
Othen (Wodan), Honir, Lothur. Wodan was the first- 
born and became the father of all other gods. 

347 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

With the advent of the gods creation proper began. 
They killed Ymir, threw his immense body intO' the abyss 
which was completely filled, and created the world there. 
The events are described thus in the Edda: 

From Ymir's giant flesh 

The earth was made ; 

The billows [the seas and all the waters] from his blood. 

The mountains from his bones, 

The bushes from his hair, 

And the heaven from his skull: 



But of his brains 

All terrible clouds in the sky 

Were made. 

The earth was round and completely encircled by the 
mighty oceans. Four dwarfs, north, south, east, west, 
were directed by the gods to support the skull and keep 
it in place above the world. 

Then the gods assigned courses to the heavenly bodies, 
which were originally sparks flying irregularly through 
space from Muspellsheim. In this manner night and day 
were established and the two seasons, summer and winter, 
were determined and conditioned. Grass began to grow 
and the earth to prosper and bring forth fruit. At the 
horizon in the far north was placed a large giant in the 
shape of an eagle. Every time he flapped his huge wings 
the wind blew over the world. The gods selected the 
middle of the world for themselves and called it Asgarth 
(the home of the Aesir, Gods). Between earth and 
Asgarth they spanned a wonderful seven-colored bridge, 
Bi frost, — mortals call it the rainbow. 

When the world thus had been made habitable, the 
gods assembled on a plain in Asgarth, took counsel, made 
dwellings for themselves and constructed all kinds of 
necessary things. This finished the first period of crea- 
tion and now followed the golden age or " millenniuni," 

34S 



THE RELIGION OF THE TEUTONS 

when happiness and bHss were the daily companions of 
the immortals. 

But the happiness came to an end, a disturbing ele- 
ment arrived among the gods. When Ymir fell the giants 
were all drowned in his blood, except Bergelmir, who 
escaped with his wife in a skiff, thus keeping alive the 
race of giants. From these, says the Edda, 

Came to the High Ones, 

Three mighty Giantesses [the Nornir, fates], 

The one is called Urth, 

The other Verthandi, 

The third Skuld. 

The lots of fortune. 

Life and death, 

The fate of heroes, — 

Everything comes from them. 

With the arrival of the Norns or Fates the second 
period of creation began. The activities of the gods were 
now directed to definite purposes and aims and their lives 
and energies were divided between a constant struggle 
against the powers of darkness (the giants) and the main- 
tenance of the world organization. 

Then the mighty ones, 
The holy gods, 

Went to their judgment seats 
To take counsel. 

As they were insufficient unto themselves and in need 
of aid they gave human form and understanding to the 
Dvergar (dwarfs), who came into existence at the death 
of Ymir. The dwarfs (sometimes called black-elves in 
contrast to the elves proper) were skillful workers, espe- 
cially in metals, and many of the treasures in Asgarth 
were of their manufacture. Later they also became 
friendly to man and often contributed to his happiness. 
The dwarfs were small and swarthy, lived under the 
earth and w^ere really " children of darkness," although 
their labors were for the benefit of gods and men, 

349 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

In somewhat of a contrast to them stood the elves, 
" airy and light/' and their home was in the air. Like 
the dwarfs they were propitious to the inhabitants of the 
earth and of Asgarth. 

One day after the creation of the dwarfs and elves. 

Three gods, 

Mighty and benevolent, 

Went to Midgarth, 

Found on the ground 

Powerless 

Ask [ash] and Embla [elm] 

Without destiny. 

They possessed neither soul 

Nor understanding, 

Neither blood nor motion 

Nor a blooming complexion. 

Othen [Wodan] gave them the spirit, 

Honir, understanding, 

Lothur gave them blood [life] 

And a rosy complexion. 

Thereupon the mighty ones. 
The holy gods, again, 
Went to their judgment seats 
To take counsel. 

The universe was now divided into nine districts or 
worlds, in which the various living beings were to reside. 
The upper part of the world the gods had already appro- 
priated for themselves and in the centre of the earth they 
prepared a home for man, Mithgarth (middle home). 
The giants were assigned to the regions of the open sea 
and the mountains, these places being called Jotunheim 
(home of giants) or Ut garth (the outer dwelling). A 
great stream divided Jotunheim and Asgartk. Says the 
Edda: 

Ifing [doubt] is called the stream, 

Which forever divides 

The home of giants and of gods. 

It shall run on 

Through all eternity. 

Never ice will form upon it. 

This Stream undoubtedly refers to the air. 

350 



THE RELIGION OF THE TEUTONS 

The interior of the earth, as we have seen, was the 
home of the dwarfs, Dvergaheim or Svartalfheim (the 
home of the black elves), and the space in the air imme- 
diately above the earth was designated as Alfheim (the 
home of the elves). The other worlds were: Vanaheim 
near the seashore; Muspellsheim (already mentioned was 
the upper heaven) ; Helheim (home of Hel, the goddess 
of death, a portion of NiHheim) ; and Niflheim (the home 
of cold and mist). 

A curious conception, obscure as to its origin and diffi- 
cult to explain, was the tree Yggdrasil (probably Wodan's 
horse). It finally came to represent the universe and 
with its destruction the world would come to an end. 
Its branches spread over the whole earth and reached 
up to heaven. It drew nourishment from three roots, 
one leading to the spring Hvergelmir in Niflheim (or 
home of mists), the other to the fountain of Mimer, 
in Jotunheim and the third to the spring of Urth ( Urthar- 
brunn), in Asgarth. At Urth's spring the gods assembled 
daily for consultation and the pure clear waters from this 
fountain gave life and growth to the tree; but at the 
fountain in Niflheim the dragon Nithhogg (hate-cut) 
"gnawed at its root. 

Another conception that has given rise to much dis- 
cussion was the world snake {M ith garths or m) , thrown 
by Wodan into the sea, where it grew until it finally 
encircled the earth and bit its tail. It has been stated 
that the world-snake idea was an eastern importation 
adopted by the Norsemen. However, the snake cult is 
of such universal occurrence as to suggest individual 
origin and development among many primitive tribes. 
The snake or serpent must have been of peculiar interest 
to early man and certainly aroused his curiosity and 
wonder. It is different from all other animals and pro- 
pels itself without feet equally well on land and on 
water. The smaller species known in Scandinavia can 

351 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

appear as from nowhere and disappear quickly in holes 
and crevices, thus baffling its pursuers. 

The notion of a monstrously large snake inhabiting 
the waters and encircling the earth could easily have 
developed in Sweden. On Lake Vettern the waves in 
connection with a peculiar light combination at a certain 
time of the year have often caused people to think that 
they see a tremendous serpent coiling its gigantic form 
across the water, and the tales from trustworthy sources 
puzzled the scientists until the natural phenomenon was 
explained. The tales of the " sea-serpent " or of a great 
sea monster are so numerous in early Scandinavian litera- 
ture and in modern tradition, that the idea must have been 
of native conception. Olaus Magnus in his History 
(1555), 21 124, describes the monster as being 200 feet 
long and about 6j^ feet in diameter. " It even disturbs 
ships," he says, " rising up like a mast and sometimes 
snaps some of the men from the deck." 

As time went on the Aesir or gods increased by birth 
and by adoption from the Vanir and the giants. In Scan- 
dinavian religion they were twelve (although fourteen 
are also mentioned) with the same number of goddesses. 
The number among the other Germanic peoples is uncer- 
tain and only a few of the divinities can be ascribed as 
common to all the early Teutons, among them being 
Wodan, Thor and Tyr. 

These Teuton gods were all-powerful, but they were 
not in themselves omnipotent, for they were limited to 
time and space and subject to the dictates of the Norns 
(Fates), the hammer of Thor was essential to the safety 
of A'sgarth, and the eight- footed horse of Othen (Wo- 
dan) was a necessary agent for swift transition from 
place to place ; they were " all-wise," but they were not 
in themselves omniscient, for a drink in Miner's foun- 
tain of wisdom was required by Wodan and two ravens 
brought him news of all human and world events; they 

352 



THE RELIGION OF THE TEUTONS 

were not '' all-good," for they were partly of giant origin 
and hence carried the germ of evil in their souls; meas- 
ured by the short span of human lives, they were eternal 
as they lived on for innumerable ages, but they were not 
immortal, for their power was destroyed in Ragna/rok 
and the majority went under in that catastrophe. 

The chief divinity was Wodan (Othen). He was 
the first-born, the " all-father," the special friend of man, 
the incarnation of wisdom and the protector and ruler 
of the universe. He was the inventor of runes, and 
the originator of poetry; he inspired the skalds and 
taught man the art of letters. Wodan was one-eyed. 
He desired to drink from the spring of wisdom, guarded 
by Miner; but this he could do only by giving away one 
eye. He was thought of as tall and stately, with a grave 
countenance, aged and bearded. On his arm hung a 
heavy gold ring, draupnir (dripping) ; in battle or on 
his journeys he wore " a mantle of blue and a helmet 
of gold " and in his right hand he carried the wondrous 
spear, gungnir. From him we have Wednesday, Wodan's 
day. Two wolves lay at his feet and two ravens, Hugin 
(thought) and Muninn (longing), sat on his shoulders. 
The ravens " flew out over the world every morning " 
and returned with news to their master and thus Wodan 
knew what mortals did. His horse Sleipnir (slippery), 
on which he rushed through the air, was the noblest and 
swiftest of animals, with eight legs and with runes cm 
his teeth. 

Wodan was thrice married. His first wife was Jorth 
(the earth), who became the mother of Thor, the eldest 
son of Wodan and the strongest inhabitant of Asgarth. 
Frigg was his second and most important wife. *' Nine 
maids waited upon her and three others were at her 
service." " She knows the destiny of all beings, although 
she never talks of such things herself." She was the 
goddess of motherly love, the protector of marriage and 

23 353 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

the guardian of women and their domestic duties. Friday 
is called after her and she was highly honored, especially 
in Sweden. Her nine maids were engaged in nine occu- 
pations in which she took interest and which she super- 
vised and regarded as her own. Thus Sjofn lighted the 
flame of love in human breasts; Var guarded over the 
promises and oaths given by men and women and pun- 
ished all those who broke their troths. Rindr, who was 
white as the sun, became Wodan's third wife, and only 
with great difficulty did he win her. 

The wives of Wodan apparently represented the earth 
in various aspects and thus seem to indicate that Wodan 
was originally a sun or sky god. Jorth (earth) was the 
uncultivated earth in its primitive state, Frigg denoted 
the cultivated fruitful earth, and Rindr represented the 
earth in the frozen wintry condition of the north, before 
the spring sun had softened her hardened surface. 

The most beloved of the gods, especially in Scandi- 
navia, was Thor, the thunderer, after whom Thursday 
was named. He was broad-shouldered and tall, red- 
haired and fierce-eyed. He possessed three treasures of 
inestimable worth : the hammer Mjolnir (the crusher), a 
pair of iron gloves, always worn in battle, and a belt 
which redoubled his tremendous power, every time he 
buckled it on. As a rule he was gentle, kind-hearted and 
peaceful. But, when his anger was aroused, he grew 
fierce and terrible and his eyes flamed like bolts of thun- 
der. He was the synonym of openness and the incar- 
nation of truth, " the god who never uttered a false- 
hood." His hammer was the symbol of faithfulness, the 
sign of the hammer (really a cross) was a protection 
against all evil things. He was the impersonation of 
strength, the undaunted defender of gods and men against 
evil powers. The cultivators of the soil called for his 
blessings and warriors prayed for his aid. He was 

354 



THE RELIGION OF THE TEUTONS 

engaged in continuous struggles with the giants, whom he 
always conquered with his mighty hammer that never 
missed its mark and always returned to the hand of its 
owner. In these fights lightning and thunder shook the 
world. Sparks from the hammer, as it crushed the hard, 
stony heads of the giants, were the ragged streaks of 
lightning which crossed the heavens during thunder- 
storms. Thor rode in a chariot drawn by two goats — 
the rumbling of thunder was the rattle of the chariot 
w^heels — and he was generally followed on his tours by 
two servants. Sif was his wife, the goddess of fruit- 
fulness and plenty, and he had three sons, Mothi (the 
courageous), Magni (the strong), and Ullr (O. E. Wul- 
dor, glory). He is the most characteristic god in Norse 
religion and his life and activities were the subject of 
numerous tales. 

Once his hammer was stolen, as he slept. Angry 
indeed was Thor when he discovered his loss. Loki was 
at once despatched to find and return the invaluable 
weapon. But the giant Thrym, who had it hidden eight 
miles below the earth, would return it only on condition 
that Freyja, the goddess of love, became his wife. Freyja, 
however, indignantly refused the proposal and trembled 
in her anger, so that the foundations of the earth shook. 
The gods took counsel, the safety of the universe being 
in the balance, for without Thor's hammer the gods could 
not maintain their power. It was suggested that Thor 
himself should dress in bridal clothes and go to the giant 
disguised as Freyja. Thor at first refused, but there 
was no escape, the hammer had to be recovered. Accord- 
ingly Thor was dressed for marriage, his goats were 
hitched to the chariot and Loki followed as bridal maid. 
Thunder and lightning raged violently on this journey, 
" the earth stood in flames," for Thor was angry and 
drove like mad. 

355 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 
A great feast was prepared in the home of the giant. 

One ox Thor ate, 
Eight salmon 
And all the delicacies 
For the woman intended. 

He also '' drank three barrels of mead." In astonishment 
then spoke Thrym : 

Where hast thou seen such a hungry bride? 
I ne'er saw a bride 
Eat so much. 
And never a maid 
Drink more mead. 

The crafty maid (Loki), however, put the giant off 
his guard. " The poor maiden," said he, " has not eaten 
for eight days, out of longing for this place." There- 
upon Thrym tried to kiss his bride, " but sprang back 
the length of the hall," exclaiming. 

Why are Freyja's eyes so wild? 
From her eyes it seems 
That fire doth burn. 

" Oh," answered Loki, " the poor girl has not slept for 
eight nights, so much did she long for Jotunheim/* 

Then said Thrym, 

The king of giants, 

Bring in the hammer 

My bride to hallow; 

Place Mjolnir [the hammer] 

In the maid's lap, 

Wed us together 

With the hand of Var.' 

But now Thor came into his own again. He grasped the 
short handle of his trusty hammer and slew Thrym and 
" all that race of giants." The world was saved and 
Thor returned in triumph to his hall in Asgarth. 

Another god common to all Teutonic tribes was 

* The goddess of marriage, servant maid of Frigg. 

356 



THE RELIGION OF THE TEUTONS 

Tyr3 (O. E. Tiw, O. H. G. Ziu, the high, the glorious. 
Cp. Lat. dens, Gr. Zeus) from whom we have Tuesday. 
In the beginning he was preeminently the god of war, 
and he was the personification of bravery and courage. 
References to him are found in Roman and other early 
writers and as late as the Edda he is still described as the 
god of war, although he at that time had been largely 
superseded by Thor and Wodan. Tyr alone had the 
courage to feed the Fenris-wolf, a huge monster brought 
up in Asgarth. When the gods perceived that the wolf 
was growing dangerous through his strength and ferocity, 
they decided to bind him. But the wolf would not consent 
to this, unless one of the immortals placed a hand in 
his mouth, as a pledge that there was no deceit in the 
matter. None of the gods seemed disposed to risk a limb. 
But when Tyr heard of the conditions, he did not hesi- 
tate to put his hand between the monster's jaws. How- 
ever, as the wolf discovered that he had been tricked, he 
bit off the hand of Tyr and therefore the god had but 
one hand. 

Loki* occupied a large space in Scandinavian re- 
ligion; whether he appeared among all the other Ger- 
manic tribes is beyond proof. Originally he seems to 
have been " a good being," a member of the pantheon ; 
some have even tried to make him a brother of Wodan 
and one of the three gods who created man. Gradually 
he drifted away from the gods and came to be the repre- 
sentation of evil, the embryo of a devil. He often caused 
worry and trouble among the immortals, but he also 
helped them out of many difficulties, as for instance by 
the recovery of the hammer, and at times gave valuable 
advice. Finally, however, his wickedness and overbearing 
became intolerable. He was captured, dragged into a 

' He was the son of Wodan. 

*The account of Lx)ki, by Pfofessor Anderson in Norse My- 
thology, p. 371, is quite erroneous. 

357 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

cavern and tied on three sharp-pointed rocks. Above 
his head a poisonous serpent was suspended in such a 
manner that the venom fell into his face. But his faithful 
wife Sigyn sat at his side and collected the deadly drops 
in a cup. When the cup was full and she went away 
to empty it, the venom fell upon Loki, who then shrieked 
with horror and twisted his body so violently that the 
whole earth shook — thus the earthquake was produced. 
There Loki will lie until Ragnarok (the destruction of 
the world). 

Other gods, especially in Scandinavian religion, some 
of whom occupied a significant position in the pantheon, 
were Balder, the god of purity and light; Forsete, the 
god of justice; Brage, the god of poetry and oratory; 
Heimdallr, the guardian of Asgarth and the founder of 
civilization among men; Freyj, the god of fertility, the 
ruler of rain and sunshine. 

Some of the most important of the goddesses besides 
those already mentioned (the wives of Wodan: Jorth, 
Frigg, with her maids, and Rindr; Sif, the wife of Thor, 
and Sigyn, the wife of Loki) were Froja, Gef jon, Fulla, 
Ithun and Nanna. They were the counterparts of the 
gods and the guardians of womanhood. 

The Vanir were gods, but of a lower order than the 
Aesir (Wodan, Thor, Tyr, etc.) and of different and 
apparently unknown origin. Their home was Vanaheim, 
the lakes and rivers and the waters of the sea near the 
coasts. In the beginning the Vanir were the cause of 
war with the gods, but peace was made, hostages were 
exchanged and a mutual good-will was established and 
maintained between them for the benefit of the whole 
world. 

The giants were the powers of evil in general; the 
wild nature, the cold winds, storms and all destructive 
forces in the world were of their making. They were 

358 



THE RELIGION OF THE TEUTONS 

of two kinds, the Thursar and the Jotnar (giants proper). 
They were generally described as ugly, ungainly and 
fierce; their heads were often of stone or as hard as 
stone and their stature was immense. They were the 
enemies of the gods and men and they were nearly an 
equal match for the inhabitants of Asgarth. But indi- 
viduals among them were often beautiful, and friendly 
disposed towards man " and the sons of Wodan." 

The Thursar were the rulers of the wild open sea, over 
which Ran was queen, while the Jotnar were the inhabit- 
ants of the mountains and the barren parts of the earth. 

Besides the giants, dwarfs, elves, Vanir and gods 
proper, there were several other beings, which played an 
important part in early Teutonic religion, and which in 
some cases have survived in the folk belief down to the 
present day. 

In the Saga of Hakon the Good we read : " It was 
the custom in olden times, when sacrifice was about tO' 
be made, that the freemen should go to the temple with 
the supplies they would need while the feast of sacrifice 
lasted. They were all to have ale. All kinds of small 
domestic animals and horses were slain, and all the blood 
that came from them was called hlaut and was preserved 
in so-called hlaut-howls. With the hlaut-teins, which were 
made in the fashion of a sprinkler broom, all the stalls and 
the inside and outside walls of the temple should be 
reddened, and the people should be sprinkled. The 
meat was boiled for the feasting of those present. 
In the middle .of the floor there were fires, above 
which hung caldrons, and the drinking cups should be 
carried around the fire. The one who made the feast 
and was the chieftain should bless the cups and all the 
sacrificial food. First they should drink a cup to Othen 
(Wodan) for victory and the dominion of their king, 

359 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

then to Njorth ^ and Freyj ^ for prosperity and peace. 
Thereupon many drank the cup of BrageJ They also 
used to drink their cups to their dead kinsmen, who had 
distinguished themselves." This description of a public 
sacrifice- feast refers to late historic times, but contains 
many primitive elements. 

The early Teutons were plain materialists and had 
no hankering for a life beyond the grave, but they were 
extremely religious and they never began an important 
undertaking of any kind in war or peace without offer- 
ings and prayers to the gods. The object to be sacrificed 
was determined by the importance of the object to be 
obtained. Small animals, food, drink, etc., would be 
offered to the gods and the other spirits on ordinary occa- 
sions or when ordinary things were requested. Large 
animals, especially horses, were offered on public occa- 
sions, in emergencies or in trying times; in stress and 
danger or when victories were obtained or called for, 
human beings were often sacrificed. Then kings even 
offered up their sons and we have records of a people 
sacrificing their king to propitiate the gods. Besides 
" occasional sacrifices " the Teutons celebrated three great 
festivals, at which large offerings were made. The first 
of these was in the middle of October, the Germanic 
thanksgiving; the second took place in the beginning 
of January, the Yule time ; and the third fell towards the 
middle of April, at which sacrifices were made especially 
to Wodan, in order to obtain his blessings for victories 
and successful expeditions. 

Prayers to the gods were also common, but it was a 
general principle not to sacrifice or pray to excess. In 
prayer the suppliant turned towards the north, and some- 

^The god of the wind and fishing. 

° The god of fertility and the ruler of the rain and sunshine. 

' The god of poetry. 

360 



THE RELIGION OF THE TEUTONS 

times kneeled or threw himself on the ground before 
divine images. 

Magic or sorcery in which the runes played an impor- 
tant part was common and even the gods made use of it. 
Divination was also employed. 

Temples were apparently built by nearly all Germanic 
tribes in the early centuries of our era; but we have 
definite information of such only in the north. They 
were built in forests, which were the original places of 
worship, and which continued to be held in reverence, and 
trees were often sacred among the people. The temples 
of Scandinavia were of two kinds, one round (the earlier 
type) and another of oblong shape with a semicircular 
prolongation which was separated from the former by a 
wall. The prolongation was a remnant of the earlier form 
to which was added the feast hall for the convenience of 
the people. 

They were surrounded by an enclosure and looked 
after by a priest, king or chieftain, as the case might be. 
Priests without other office were not original among the 
Teutons, but the priesthood was fully developed in the 
Viking period. Images of the gods were general. They 
were of wood, sometimes made of stone or metal, and 
placed on a kind of pedestal, in the semicircular prolonga- 
tion, mentioned above, or even in the open. 

The earliest conception about the " homes of the 
dead " was Helheim, a misty, cold and horrifying region, 
where dragons and other hideous monstersr terrified the 
arrivals from the upper world. This- did not satisfy later 
generations, who demanded a more, cheerful abode " after 
their labors." Accordingly, the idea of Valhall grew up. 

Valhall was fhe largest and piost gorgeous hall in 
Asgarth, where Wodan received the heroes who had fallen 
bravely in battle. It was covered with shields and lighted 
by sparkling swords. It had 640 doors, through each 
one of which 960 champions could march abreast. In 

361 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

this hall the chosen heroes led a life of activity and happi- 
ness. Every morning they put on their armor and marched 
out to a plain, where they engaged in mortal combat and 
slew one another. However, when mealtime came they 
all arose again and returned to Valhall, as the best of 
friends, and partook of the boar Saehrimnir, and the 
heavenly mead served by the Valkyrior, the female ser- 
vants of Wodan. This was repeated in eternal monotony. 
In the early morning the boar was ready to be made 
into a new meal, as he came to life again every evening 
as fat and healthy as ever. Not all fallen heroes could 
enter Valhall: only those whose lives were noble and 
spotless were worthy of such honor. These were se- 
lected by the Valkyrior, and brought in triumph into the 
great hall before the god of battle. 

The Teutons believed that the material world with 
its inhabitants, including the gods, would sometime come 
to an end. This catastrophe was to be preceded by long 
periods of continuous winter and by disturbances in 
nature and by degeneration in the moral world. Then 
comes the fatal hour. The gods are lined up in battle 
array for their last mighty struggle. They are met by 
the giants and by all the forces of darkness. The world 
shakes in its foundations. The ash Yggdrasil perishes. 

The sun darkens, 

The earth sinks into the sea. 

The bright stars 

Are hurled from heaven. 

Fire roars 

Against flaming fire; 

High play the flames 

Against the very sky. 

But from the ruins a new world shall arise " and 
prosper forever." New gods will appear and a new race 
of men will inhabit the new earth. Evil is banished 
eternally and goodness and virtue shall live perpetually 
among mortals and gods. 

362 



THE RELIGION OF THE TEUTONS 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The Edda, translated by B. Thorpe (1866), G. Vigfusson in his 
Corpus poeticum horeale (1883), B. OHve Bray, i-ii (1908). 

Anderson, Rasmus B. : Norse Mythology (Chicago, 1901). 

De la Saussaye, p. D. Chantepie: The Religion of the Teutons 
(Boston and London, 1902). 

Helm, Karl: Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte (1913). 

(}oLTHER, Wolfgang : Handbuch der germanischen Mythologie (Leip- 
zig, 1895)- 

Grimm, Jacob: Deutsche Mythologie, i-iii (4th ed., Berlin, 1875-78). 

GuMMERE, F. B. : Germanic Origins (New York, 1892). 

Meyer, E. H. : Germanische Mythologie (Berlin, 1891). 

Meyer, K H. : Mythologie der Germanen (Strassburg, 1902). 

Meyer, R. M. : Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte (1910). 

MoGK, E. : Germanische Mythologie (2d ed., Strassburg, 1898). 

Petersen, Henry: On Nordboernes Gudedyrkelse og Gudetro i 
Hedenold (Copenhagen, 1876). A rather poor German transla- 
tion (Ober den Gottesdienst, etc.) was published at Gardelegen 
in 1882. 

Rydberg, Viktor: Undersokningar i germansk mythologi, i-ii 
(Stockholm, 1886, 1889). Vol. i was translated by R. B. Ander- 
son and published in London in 1889. 

Thorpe, Benjamin: Northern Mythology, i-iii (1851-1852). 



363 



CHAPTER XIII 

EARLY CHRISTIANITY 
BY WILLIAM ROMAINE NEWBOLD, 

I MUST ask you at the outset to remember that I can 
do no more within the narrow compass of a single lecture 
than sketch the broad outlines of a picture, omitting 
details which would modify to some extent the general 
impression of the whole and which strict accuracy would 
require me to introduce. 

One may recognize in the development of early Chris- 
tianity three important stages : first, the Gospel preached 
by Jesus ; second, the Gospel preached, for the most part 
to the Jews, by the Apostles and other early converts ; 
third, the form which this Gospel assumed after it had 
been preached by Paul, Peter and others among the Gen- 
tiles and had been subjected to the influences of Hellenistic 
culture. 

The Gospel of Jesus 

The Gospel which Jesus preached was very simple, 
both in substance and in form. Its burden was that of 
the preaching of John the Baptist — Repent: for the king- 
dom of heaven is at hand (Mt. 4:17). By the Kingdom 
of Heaven or the Kingdom of God Jesus meant any sphere 
in which the will of God is obeyed. Thus, heaven be- 
longs to the Kingdom of God; so also does earth in so 
far as God's will is obeyed on earth. And, in a slightly 
different sense, the heart of every man who obeys God's 
will belongs to the Kingdom of God — the kingdom of 
God is within you (Luke 17:21). Just what Jesus 
meant by His declaration that the coming of the Kingdom 
is at hand is difficult to determine. At least two con- 
ceptions of it can be distinguished in the Gospels. Ac- 

364 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 

cording to one, which is virtually identical with a preva- 
lent Jewish conception, Jesus, as the Messiah, will return 
to earth at some time in the future with power and glory 
and institute Messiah's kingdom. According to the other, 
the Kingdom comes for each man when he begins to do 
God's will. Hence it was being initiated by Jesus' min- 
istry, and its coming was to be prolonged throughout the 
period during which the mustard seed which He had come 
to plant would be growing up, the leaven which He was 
to introduce into the world would be leavening the whole 
lump. 

Thus repentance and a change of heart by which man's 
will comes into conformity with God's will is the sole 
and sufficient condition of admission to the Kingdom 
of God. 

Jesus also declared Himself authorized to reveal the 
nature of God, in so far as it concerns His creatures. 
God's attitude towards them is that of love, like that of a 
father towards his children. And His will, therefore, is 
that men should try to become like Him and should be 
actuated in all their conduct by no other motive than 
.love to God and to their fellow-men. 

Jesus frequently declared that the fate of those who 
fail to enter the Kingdom will be eternal death, but He 
never explains precisely what He meant by it. It is obvi- 
ous however that he conceived it to be a very terrible 
fate indeed; so terrible that it was the only reason for 
His mission — the Son of Man is come, He said, to seek 
and to save that which was lost (Luke 19:19). And the 
eternal life which is to be the reward of those who do 
enter the Kingdom is In like manner left unexplained. It 
certainly extends beyond the grave, and Jesus frequently 
intimates that He knows just what it is, but He never 
dwells upon it. It would seem that He felt, and wished 
His disciples to feel, that membership in the Kingdom is 
the only thing of importance and that the change of scene 

365 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

occasioned by death should not be an object of too much 
interest and concern. 

Jesus preached this Gospel with authority. He de- 
clared that He and He alone knew the nature of God and 
was able to reveal it to men. He called Himself " Son of 
God " and also " Son of Man," a title which probably had 
much the same meaning to His hearers, for in the Book 
of Enoch, which was written about a hundred years 
before Jesus' time and certainly was known to some of 
the writers of the New Testament, the " Son of Man " 
is a celestial being who dwells in heaven with God await- 
ing the time when he is to- be sent down to earth as the 
Messiah. Jesus also forgave sins on His own authority. 
He acknowledged the inspiration of the Old Testament, 
yet He dared on His own authority to amend the sacred 
Law of Moses — Ye have heard that it was said by them 
of old time, . . . but I say unto you. 

Yet, notwithstanding these extraordinary claims for 
Himself, He never made Himself a part of His Gospel. 
He demanded that men should accept His message as 
authoritative, but He never demanded that they should 
accept even His own statements about Himself as part 
of the message. Even in the Gospel of John, where 
Jesus says more about Himself than in all the others 
put together, it is always the acceptance of His authority 
as the messenger of God that He has in mind, not of any 
views about Himself. Indeed, He explicitly warns His 
hearers that no mere paying of reverence to Himself can 
be offered as a substitute for acceptance of His Gospel — 
Not every one that saith unto me. Lord, Lord, shall enter 
into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will 
of my Father which is in heaven (Mt. 7: 21). 

This Gospel was not new. Every point in it, except 
the imminence of the coming of the Kingdom and Jesus' 
own connection with it, had been taught by the prophets 
and was even taught in Jesus' time by the more spiritually 

366 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 

minded among the Rabbis. Yet it impressed His hearers 
as startlingly new and dangerously revolutionary. The 
popular religion conceived of God, not as loving, but as 
stern, jealous and irascible. Salvation was supposed to 
depend, not upon repentance and reformation, but upon 
the faithful observance of the contract made by God with 
Moses by which He had pledged Himself to give the Jews 
the land of Palestine and other blessings in consideration 
of performance of the Law. Religion, therefore, con- 
sisted chiefly in obedience to the Law, and especially to 
the ritual Law. This conception of religion Jesus sternly 
denounced. 

The Gospel Preached by the Apostles 

Turning now to the Gospel preached by the Apostles : 
it included all that Jesus had taught, but it contained also 
other principles which Jesus had not publicly taught. 

The Apostles proclaimed the resurrection of Jesus, 
of which they declared themselves the witnesses. They 
laid great emphasis upon it as affording conclusive proof, 
first, of God's approval of Jesus' life and work, and, 
second, of the doctrine of the resurrection of the body, 
already widely accepted among the Jews. Thus that doc- 
trine became a part of the Christian religion. 

The Apostles also preached Jesus as the Messiah. 
Jesus had Himself admitted that He was the person fore- 
told by the prophets and usually called the Messiah, but 
He had kept the fact in the background until just before 
His death. His disciples made it one of the foremost 
principles of their religion. In this way such of the 
Jewnsh ideas of the person and work of the Messiah as 
were not obviously incompatible with the facts of Jesus' 
life were introduced into the minds of Christians and 
exerted considerable influence upon later speculation. 

The Apostles also preached Jesus as the Saviour of 
men from sin and the consequences of sin. This is beyond 

367 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

all comparison the most important of the elements which 
distinguish the Gospel of the Apostles from the Gospel 
of Jesus. Not that they invented it themselves. Even 
the Synoptic Gospels put it beyond question that Jesus 
conceived of Himself as a Saviour, and there is no rea- 
son to doubt that John is true to the facts when he repre- 
sents Jesus as at times speaking of the subject at greater 
length than is reported in the Synoptics. But, certainly, 
if Jesus had made it a prominent feature of His pubHc 
teaching, which is the impression given by John's Gospel 
taken alone, it could not have been so consistently ignored 
by the eye-'witnesses whose stories have been incorporated 
into our Synoptics. 

It is not hard to understand why the Apostles attached 
such importance to Jesus' resurrection, for that was to 
their minds the final proof of His authority, nor why they 
thought of Him chiefly as the Messiah, for the idea was 
a familiar one to every Jewish mind and fraught with 
hope as no other. But what gave them this new realiza- 
tion of His power as a Saviour from sin? 

In the answer to this question is to be found the key 
to the comprehension of primitive Christianity, and not 
only of primitive Christianity but of Christianity as one 
of the world religions. For if there is any single trait 
which distinguishes Christianity from all other religions 
it is its proclamation of Jesus as a Saviour. Other re- 
ligions have their prophets and teachers, but Christianity 
alone proclaims its Founder as a Saviour. Myriads of 
men have avowed their belief in this doctrine, and al- 
though by far the greater number have meant no more 
by their avowal than formal assent to a more or less well 
understood statement, there remains a countless multitude 
for whom it has been the expression of an experience so 
profound, so compelling, that no persuasion, no argument, 
no threats, not even torture and death, could avail to 
shake their assurance of its reality. 

368 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 

As the theory which I am putting before you is prob- 
ably novel to many of you, I must dwell briefly upon the 
facts upon which it is based. 

Religious people, if they can be persuaded to talk on 
the subject, will often say that they are aware of a new 
kind of consciousness within their souls, a kind of which 
they knew nothing before they became religious, and this 
they call "the spiritual life." If they are Christians, 
they usually attribute the initiation of the spiritual life 
to Jesus. Now, just what do they mean by this " spiritual 
life " and what reason have they for ascribing it to Jesus ? 

There are many manifestations of the spiritual Hfe 
and I cannot now attempt to describe them at length. A 
good survey of the more important will be found in Prof. 
William James' famous book. The Varieties of Religious 
Experience, It will be enough for my present purpose 
if I call your attention to two of the more common types. 

The most characteristic trait, perhaps, is a genuine 
distaste for all that is recognized as sin, even for those 
sins which had formerly seemed most attractive. Often 
the attraction disappears and is replaced by repulsion. 
More often, probably, it still survives and wages warfare 
with the new repugnance. 

The second trait is one of which there are many de- 
scriptions, yet all agree that the experience is essentially 
indescribable. It is felt as an inflow into the deepest 
depths of one's interior self of a mighty stream of con- 
scious life, independent of and foreign to one's self and 
utterly unlike anything ever before experienced. It is 
usually described in terms derived from the emotions — 
it is a " love " that embraces all sentient beings and 
even inanimate objects ; it is a " joy " beside which all 
the pleasures of life pale into nothingness ; it is a " peace " 
so profound that no earthly vicissitudes can trouble it. 
But it has an intensity, a vividness, possessed by no 
emotion and superior to that of any sensation, a ** burning 
24 369 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

sweetness," which poor fallen human nature finds all but 
insupportable. To the man who has had such an experi- 
ence his former life seems like an arid waste, a living 
death, nay, like death itself. 

These experiences and others of the same general 
type are not peculiar to Christianity; they are found to 
some extent in other religions. But Christians usually 
ascribe them to Jesus, or to the Spirit of God, which He 
is conceived to use as His agent. Why do they do so? 
Usually, perhaps, it is simply because they have received 
these experiences while under Christian influences and 
have been taught to explain them in this way. But in 
many cases the agency of Jesus is itself a part of the 
experience. And as this also is probably a new and 
strange idea to many of you I must take the time to give 
a typical illustration of such an experience. Let me quote 
the words of a Hindu who never called himself a Chris- 
tian but remained to the end of his life a member of the 
Brahmo Somaj — the late P. C. Mozoomdar. After re- 
lating how, in his early life, although he had never been 
exposed to Christian influences, the sense of sin grew 
upon him, and how he was " mysteriously led to feel a 
personal aiffinity to the spirit of Christ," he proceeds : 

The whole subject of the life and death of Christ had 
for me a marvellous sweetness and fascination. I repeat, 
I can never account for this. Untaught by any one, not 
sympathised with by even the best of my friends, often 
discouraged amd ridiculed, I persisted in according to 
Christ a tenderness of honor which arose in my heart 
unbidden. I prayed, I fasted at Christmas and Easter 
times. I secretly hunted the bookshops of Calcutta to 
gather the so-called likenesses of Christ. I did not know, 
I cared not to think, whither all this woidd lead. About 
the year 186/ a very painful period of spiritual isolation 
overtook me. . , . I was almost alone in Calcutta. . . . 
It was a zveekday evening. ... 7 sat near the large lake 

370 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 

in the HUidu College compound, . . . / was meditating 
upon tJie state of my soul, on the cure of all spiritual 
wretchedness, the brightness and peace unknown to me 
which was the lot of God's children. I prayed and he- 
sought heaven. I cried, and shed hot tears. It might he 
said I was almost in a state of trance. Suddenly, it seemed 
to me, let me own that it was revealed to me, that close 
to me there was a holier, more hlessed, most loving per- 
sonality upon which I might repose my troubled head. 
Jesus lay discovered in my heart as a strange, human, kin- 
dred love, as a repose, a sympathetic consolation, an un- 
purchased treasure to which I was freely invited. The 
response of my nature was unhesitating and immediate. 
Jesus, from that day, to me became a reality whereon I 
might lean. It was an impidse then, a Hood of light, love, 
and consolation. It is no longer an impidse now. It is a 
faith a'nd principle; it is an experience verified by a thou- 
sand trials. . . . In the midst of these crumbling systems 
of Hindu error and superstition, in the midst of this self- 
righteous dogmatism and acrimonious controversy, in the 
midst of these cold, spectral shadows of transition, secu- 
larism, and agnostic doubt, to me Christ has been like 
the meat and drink of my soul. (The Oriental Christ, 
Boston, 1888, pp. 9-13.) 

It will be, I think, obvious to those of you who are 
familiar with the New Testament that the experience of 
Mozoomdar must have been very much the same as the 
experience of Paul. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, must 
have had some such experience to inspire the language 
which he uses in the letters which he wrote while on his 
way to Rome to be exposed to the beasts in the Coliseum — 
Jesus Christ, our true Life ( Smyrn. 4:1); Jesus Christ, 
our inseparable life (Eph. 2:2) ; if any one has (Jesus) 
zvithin him let him understand what I mean and sympa- 
thise with me, knowing what things constrain me (Rom. 
6: 3) ; m love, in the stainless joy which is Jesus Christ, 

371 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

than whom there is nothing better (Mag. 7:1). Again, 
it is some such experience as this which has been crystal- 
lized into the apocryphal saying of Jesus preserved by 
Origen (in Jer. horn. lat. 3:3): He that is near Me is 
near the fire; he that is far from Me is far from the 
Kingdom. 

I am not, I will ask you to observe, urging upon you 
any particular interpretation of these phenomena. But 
I do hold that these experiences constitute a class of phe- 
nomena which occur spontaneously, which are sufficiently 
well defined to be made an object of study, and which, 
alone, supply the key to the comprehension of early Chris- 
tianity. In fact, a man who has never had any such 
experience himself and has never tried, by diligent study 
of the statements of those who have had them, to acquire 
some sympathetic insight into what they are like, will 
find in the writings of the early Christians, and of many 
later ones, little but unintelligible jargon. 

It was on the day of Pentecost that the Christian 
religion really came into being. There came to the com- 
pany of the disciples, as they sat together indoors at 
about nine o'clock in the morning, a mighty, transforming 
experience. Whether the account which has come down 
to us gives a faithful picture of what happened upon that 
memorable day or not, whether there really was heard 
the sound as of a rushing, mighty wind, whether there 
really appeared tongues as of fire which sat upon each 
of them, whether they really spoke foreign languages 
of which they had before been ignorant — these are ques- 
tions which each of us will answer in accordance with his 
preconceived standards as to what is possible and what 
is not possible in this world of ours. But of the central 
fact, of the mighty, transforming experience, there can 
be no doubt whatever, for it has changed the whole 
course of history. Nothing else can explain why it was 
that these humble and ignorant Jews, who but a few 

372 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 

days before, at the time of Jesus' arrest, had shown them- 
selves arrant cowards, were transformed into veritable 
firebrands. Sacrificing home, family, friends, all that 
makes life worth living, they devoted their lives to the 
preaching of a doctrine which must have seemed to its 
first hearers an insult to their intelligence ; they fearlessly 
faced ridicule, insult, mob-violence, imprisonrnent, torture 
and death ; some of them certainly finally laid down their 
lives in testimony to the constancy of their conviction. 

But it was not only the first disciples to whom this 
strange experience came. When they began their preach- 
ing it seemed as though the same power that had given 
them strength and courage was cooperating with them, 
opening the ears of their hearers, forcing conviction upon 
unwilling minds, turning sinners from their sins, support- 
ing them in their efforts to tread the unaccustomed way 
of holiness, shedding abroad in their hearts, love, joy and 
the '* peace of God which passeth all understanding." 
These earliest Jewish Christians, long before the time of 
Paul, to whose initiative some scholars would ascribe 
the introduction into the Church of this type of Chris- 
tianity, dwelt together, we are told, in joy and singleness 
"of heart. In the light of the new love which now suffused 
them all distinctions of rank and wealth faded away and 
those that had property sold it and distributed it among 
the brethren so that all shared alike. 

These were the facts which gave the Apostles their 
new appreciation of the significance of Jesus as a Saviour. 
Just why they attributed these new^ and wonderful spirit- 
ual blessings to His agency we do not definitely know, 
but nothing is more certain than that they did. And not 
they only. Throughout all the early Christian literature 
this idea recurs again and again. It is the most constant 
and the most characteristic trait of the Christian religion. 

But, however universal the recognition of Jesus' 
agency, it is by no means always conceived in the same 

373 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

way; indeed, it is often expressed in such vague terms 
that it is impossible to gather from them a clear idea of 
what the author's conception is. Sometimes love, joy, 
knowledge, light, life, immortality, salvation, are de-" 
scribed as the gifts of God " through " Jesus, sometimes 
as Jesus' own gifts. Sometimes, instead of love, joy, 
knowledge, life, light, immortality, God Himself or Jesus 
Himself are conceived to be given to men and caused to 
dwell in their hearts. Or, instead of God or Jesus it is 
the Spirit of God or the Spirit of Jesus which gives men 
these blessings or dwells in their hearts. The identifica- 
tion between two of these different points of view is well 
shown by the statement of John — he that dwelleth in love 
dwelleth in God, and God in him (I John, 4: 16). 

Of these conceptions the one that eventually became 
dominant was that of the '* Spirit." For the early Chris- 
tians were compelled by the very law of their being, just 
as we are compelled, to interpret new experiences in terms 
of received conceptions, and the conception of the 
" Spirit " was familiar, not only to Jews, through the 
Old Testament, but also to Gentiles, for it had long 
played a prominent part in Greek philosophy. 

It will be observed that all the conceptions of Jesus' 
office as Saviour which I have so far touched upon center 
in one point, that He is in some way responsible for the 
marvellous new experiences which were appearing in the 
Christian Church. But side by side with these ideas there 
grew up another and quite independent group centering 
in His death upon the Cross. Here again the associa- 
tion was not first made by the Apostles. Jesus had more 
than once referred to His death and had connected it 
with His work as a Saviour. But the nature of the con- 
nection He had never explained. To the Christians, how- 
ever, His shameful death was a fact imperatively de- 
manding explanation, and many explanations for it were 
advanced which I have not the time to enumerate. 

374 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 

Among them the one which became most widely ac- 
cepted was based upon the notion of sacrifice. Jew and 
Gentile alike accepted as axiomatic the principle enunci- 
ated by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews (9 : 22) 
— Without shedding of blood there is no remission, and 
many would accept as reasonable his further statement — 
it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats 
should take azvay sins (10:4). The necessary inference 
is that if sins are to be forgiven a more precious sacrifice 
must be offered than any provided in the Mosaic Law. 
This is the reasoning which led to the doctrine that Jesus' 
death upon the cross was a sacrifice offered to God, a doc- 
trine which, interpreted in various ways, has played so 
important a part in Christian theology. 

Besides the experiences of wdiich I have above spoken 
and which may be grouped together under the term 
" spiritual life,'' there occurred in the primitive Christian 
community a number of other phenomena which also the 
Christians attributed to the operation of the Spirit. 
Among them were prophecy or inspired speech, fore- 
telling the future, symbolic acts, " speaking with tongues," 
healing diseases, casting out demons and the performance 
of sundry miracles. Time will not permit me to discuss 
these phenomena ; I can only say that most of them have 
been reported as occurring in modern times — some years 
ago, indeed, I had myself the opportunity of studying a 
case of " speaking with tongues " w^hich presented all the 
characteristics described by Paul in the 12th chapter of 
1st Corinthians — and that efforts have been made of 
late to explain them. But so far these efforts have been 
attended, in my opinion, with little or no success. And 
if we cannot explain them, it is not surprising that the 
first Christians could not, except by falling back upon 
the generally accepted explanation of their age, that they 
were due to " spirits." 

Turning now from the earliest forms of Christian 

375 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

thought and experience, let me sketch the modes of com- 
mon action in which they found expression. 

As the first converts were Jews, accustomed to the 
worship of the synagogue, they no doubt continued it, 
making such changes only as their new ideas suggested. 
They also continued to observe the Mosaic Law and the 
rites and customs sanctioned by tradition. Among these 
were two which were destined to develop into the chief 
rites of the Christian Church — ^baptism and the common 
meal. 

Baptism was at this time practiced by the Jews as 
a part of the ceremonies by which a proselyte was ad- 
mitted to Judaism. But it had been used by John the 
Baptist with a special significance^ — as a symbol of repent- 
ance and the remission of sins, and it was in this sig- 
nificance that it was taken over by the Christian Church. 
Jesus never Himself baptized, but it was practiced by 
His disciples during His lifetime and with His approval. 
In the Didache ^ it is preceded by instruction of the 
candidate, by fasting on the part both of the candidate 
and the person who is to perform the ceremony. It was 
administered either by dipping or by pouring and either 
in running or still water, but preferably the former. The 
only prescribed ritual was the use of the name of the 
Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. 

The common meal was not, strictly speaking, a re- 
ligious ceremony among the Jews. But it was required 
that at every meal certain " Blessings " or thanksgivings 
should be uttered over the food, and the rules prescribing 
what they should be are preserved in the Mishna. It is 
believed that the Blessings now used by orthodox Jews 
differ little in form from those in use in Jesus' time. 

*The Didache, or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, was dis- 
covered in Constantinople by Philotheos Bryennios in 1875 and pub- 
lished in 1883. It is a brief manual of instruction in the duties of 
Christians as individuals and as church members and concludes with 
an eschatological chapter. 

376 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 

But Jesus had Himself, at the last meal which He 
ate with His disciples before His crucifixion, invested 
this simple ritual with a new significance. After pro- 
nouncing the usual blessings over the wine, He said — This 
is my '' blood of the covenant " which is shed for many, 
and in like manner He said of the bread — This is my 
body. It would be vain for me to attempt now to discuss 
what meaning Jesus attached to these words or in what 
sense the disciples understood them. This much is cer- 
tain, that by this act Jesus transformed the ordinary Jew- 
ish meal, with its customary Blessings, into the Common 
Meal or " Love-feast " which was from the beginning 
the chief religious service of the Christian Church and 
which at a very early date received the name " Eucharist,'' 
i.e.y " Thanksgiving." 

In form the Eucharist originally differed very little 
from any ordinary Jewish meal of the period. A simple 
liturgy was provided for its celebration conforming in 
general to the prescriptions of the Mishna for the prayers 
to be said at every meal, namely, a thanksgiving over 
the wine, usually at the beginning of the meal, although 
it might be said at the end, another over the bread, which 
was regarded as including any other food upon the table, 
and a longer thanksgiving, in three sections, at the close 
of the meal. But there is one striking difference between 
the Jewish prayers and those of the Didache — the former 
are thanksgivings for food and drink and prayers for 
material blessings, the latter, with the exception of a 
single sentence, speak only of spiritual blessings, espe- 
cially those made known through Jesus. 

From the very beginning the Eucharist has been 
associated in the minds of Christians with the sustenance 
and renewal of the spiritual life much as the body is 
by food and drink. Even in the Didache, which is recog- 
nized by many scholars as one of the oldest Christian 
documents and which I believe to have been written in 

377 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

Jerusalem before the year 70 (although in this I shall 
find few to agree with me), the idea of spiritual food 
and drink is found in the prayer offered after the Euchar- 
istic meal: We thank Thee, Holy Father, for Thy holy 
Name which Thou hast made to dwell in our hearts, and 
for the knowledge and faith and immortality which Thou 
hast made known to us through Jesus Thy servant: Thine 
he the glory for ever. Thou, Master Almighty, hast cre- 
ated all things for Thy Name's sake; food and drink 
hast Thou given to men for enjoyment that they might 
give thanks to Thee; hut to us Thou hast given spiritual 
food and drink and eternal life through Thy Servant. 

It is a strange fact that the liturgy of the Didache 
contains no consecration of the elements. The prayers 
are, as the word " Eucharist " implies, for the most part 
thanksgivings for spiritual blessings. They contain no 
request that such blessings be given to the congregation 
at the meal in question but only that the Church may be 
sanctified and gathered together into the Kingdom and 
that " Grace,'' i.e,, the Kingdom of Grace, may come and 
this world pass away. 

Still more strange is it that in the Didache the food 
on the table is regarded as a symbol of the spiritual bless- 
ings conferred by Jesus and of nothing else. There is 
no allusion to His death or to the bread and wine as rep- 
resenting His body and blood. 

That the author could have been ignorant of this asso- 
ciation is impossible and the reasons for his silence can 
only be conjectured. It is the more surprising because 
in all our other sources for the earliest period the ideas 
of the bread and wine, the broken body and shed blood 
of the crucified Jesus, the glorified body of the risen Lord, 
the spiritual sustenance received through the sacrament, 
are all inextricably intertwined. These are the ideas 
which color the loth and nth chapters of Paul's first 
epistle to the Corinthians, and the 6th chapter of John's 

37S 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 

Gospel. They occur also very frequently in the letters of 
Ignatius, which are more deeply dyed with sacramental 
ideas than are any other writings of the early age, and in 
the writings of Justin and Irenaeus. But it is needless 
to multiply illustrations from later writers, for these 
ideas are familiar and occur in nearly all before the 
Reformation. The usual explanation, that they are due 
exclusively to a literal interpretation of Jesus' words 
of institution, is quite inadequate to account for the 
strange vitality of a most paradoxical doctrine. It is not 
because those words admit of no other than a literal 
interpretation, but because the formula, however super- 
ficially repugnant to reason, has been felt to express a 
truth of experience that so many efforts have been made, 
century after century, to provide for it a satisfactor}^ 
explanation in terms of the science accepted at the time. 
The strangest aspect of the primitive Christian ser- 
vices was the exercise of the ** spiritual gifts " with 
which sundry members believed themselves to be en- 
dowed. All tliese gifts, as I have above remarked, were 
supposed to be due to some spirit's possessing the indi- 
vidual manifesting them. But it was soon perceived that 
the words and deeds of the spirits were not all equally 
edifying. Some were incoherent, others merely silly, 
others inconsistent with the accepted principles of the 
faith, others offensive to good taste or even to good 
morals. Moreover, many scoundrels attached themselves 
to the Christian community and, by pretending to the 
possession of the spiritual gifts, abused the trust of the 
brethren to their own selfish ends. Hence arose the 
need of a criterion by which to distinguish the utter- 
ances of the Spirit of God froin those of evil spirits or of 
deliberate swindlers. The usual criterion w^as the Gospel 
principle, By their frtiits ye shall know them. In the 
Didache it is stated that if an itinerant prophet stays 
with his host more than two days, if he accepts any- 

379 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

thing in addition to enough food to last until he reaches 
his next lodging, if he asks money, he is a false prophet. 
If a prophet, speaking by a spirit, orders a meal, that 
is, a celebration of the Eucharist, and then eats of it 
himself, if he does not practice what he preaches, he is 
a false prophet. Sometimes the principle is applied to 
the words uttered by the Spirit. Paul gives as a test 
the words Jesus is accursed and Lord Jesus, the Spirit of 
God never says the former and no spirit except the Holy 
Spirit can say the latter (/ Cor, 12: 3). 

When any man's spiritual gifts had been thus tested 
and approved by the Church, he was recognized as a 
'' true " prophet {Did. 11 : 11). Thereafter he was not 
to be further tested or criticized, for disapproval of the 
utterances of the Holy Spirit constitutes the unpardon- 
able sin {Did. 11 : 7; cf. Mk. 3 : 28-30). 

Nevertheless, Paul lays down (/ Cor. 12 and 14) 
two other restrictions — namely, that the utterances of the 
spirits must be edifying and that the spirits of the prophets 
are subject to the prophets. This latter, as McGiffert 
acutely observes {The Apostolic Age, p. 524) marks an 
epoch in the history of Christian worship. For, in fact, 
the so-called automatic phenomena are seldom beyond the 
control of the will; they are usually induced by expectancy 
and refusal to exercise voluntary control, as any one can 
easily test by experiment If then the prophet is to prac- 
tice none save those which commend themselves to his 
judgment as edifying, the very condition of their being 
is taken away and they will disappear. If Paul's advice 
had been followed the charismatic ministry would soon 
have become a thing of the past. 

The prophets therefore constituted, in a sense, an 
order of clergy. In fact, they were the only '' clergy " 
of the early Church, if the word be taken to mean a class 
of men set apart for the performance of religious 
functions. Deacons had already been appointed, but 

380 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 

their duty was the distribution of the alms to the poor. 
EniffxoTTot or bishops, also were appointed at an early date. 
They were, as the word indicates, " overseers " or " trus- 
tees " who had charge primarily of the temporal inter- 
ests of the churches and in particular had the custody 
of the alms and the responsibility for their disposition. 
It was also expected that the bishop would discharge 
the duties of hospitality which were owed by the Church 
to any travelling Christian. Yet it is probable that almost 
from the beginning the bishops performed religious func- 
tions also. Since the prophets were the most honored 
members of the Church, it would be natural to select 
a prophet for the office of bishop and hence the two 
officers were no doubt usually held by the same man. 
Moreover, the Didache expressly states that the bishops 
and deacons exercise the same ministry as the prophets 
and teachers (Did. 15:1). Tlpsa^orepoi , or "elders," 
are frequently mentioned in the earliest sources but 
their functions are not definitely specified. 

The constitution of the earliest churches was un- 
doubtedly due to the Apostles, and it is extremely prob- 
able that that of the church of Jerusalem, which had 
been directly instituted by them and of which I believe 
the Didache gives us a sketch, served as a model for the 
others. Every church was supposed to appoint its own 
officers, for, since every church possessed the gift of the 
Holy Spirit, it was felt that the selection of the officers 
should be left to the Spirit, as, for example, the Holy 
Spirit, speaking through the church of Antioch, selected 
Saul and Barnabas for the mission to the Gentiles {Acts 
'^Z'^-Z)' ^"t the Apostles were not only possessed of 
the Holy Spirit in a preeminent degree but were also 
directly commissioned by the Lord Himself to preach the 
Gospel and found churches, hence in any church where 
the wishes of an Apostle were known it is probable that 
they would be regarded as authoritative, and persons se- 

381 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

lected and approved by aii Apostle would be regarded as 
possessed of similar authority, especially when confirmed 
by the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking through the 
church to which he was appointed. Persons thus selected 
were in some cases and probably in all set aside for their 
work by the rite of ordination, or* " laying on of hands," 
in which all the elders took part and which was regarded, 
certainly by Paul and probably universally, as conferring 
the gift of the Holy Spirit. 

I have been endeavoring to describe the primitive 
Christian Church as it was in the days while it was still 
chiefly a Jewish sefct, when most Christians observed 
the Mosaic Law not less strictly than their Jewish breth- 
ren, shared their national hopes, looking to the return* of 
the Messiah for their realization, and never dreaming 
that the religion of Jesus was to become an almost ex- 
clusively Gentile faith, spreading to the remotest corners 
of the earth and for centuries to come moulding the 
evolution of nations as yet tmborn. And as I turn from 
the narrow confines of Palestine and look abroad upon 
the brilliant Grseco-Roman world, as I see the Christian 
faith with its rudimentary theology, its pure morality, 
its fervent devotion to the living Lord, its ardent spiritual 
life, entering into that busy pagan civilization, coming 
into manifold relations of attraction or repulsion with 
its innumerable religions and philosophies, with its politi- 
cal institutions, its moral principles and social customs, 
I feel that any picture which I may be able to sketch 
in a few paragraphs will be hopelessly inadequate. 

If Christianity was to become a world religion it 
must renounce a large part of its Jewish inheritance. 
The Mosaic Law, already sufficiently burdensome, had 
been so enlarged by new distinctions and restrictions 
accumulated in the course of centuries that it had become 
a burden too heavy to be borne. That any large number 
of Gentiles would be induced to accept it was a vain 

382 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 

dream. But the rejection of the ritual Law necessitated 
a radical revision of the traditional Jewish plan of salva- 
tion. According to that theory, as I have said, God had 
made a covenant on Mount Sinai with Moses as the 
representative of the Jewish nation according to which 
God, in consideration of obedience on the part of the 
Jews to the entire Law then revealed, both ritual and 
moral, contracted to give them the land of Palestine 
together with sundry worldly and material blessings. 
Breach of this contract had brought upon the Jews all 
the disasters with which they had been afflicted ; faithful 
observance of its terms, such as the Pharisees made 
their aim, would lead to the restitution by the Messiah of 
all that they had lost and very much more. Such was 
the primitive Jewish conception, and it was still the belief, 
probably, of the majority of the nation. But it must not 
be forgotten that many entertained nobler ideals than 
this. 

It was to Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles, that the 
Church owed the theory of the relation between the Old 
Covenant and the New which later became the orthodox 
doctrine. Paul admitted the existence of a contract be- 
tween God and the Jewish nation ; he held, however, that 
it was made, not with Moses, but with Abraham. The 
consideration was, not obedience to the ritual Law, but 
simply faith in God. Abraham represented, not the 
Jews as such, but only those Jews who had that faith. 
The significance of the New Covenant is this: faith in 
God implies faith in His Son, Jesus, and that faith is 
rewarded by the gift of the Spirit which carries with it 
sanctification and salvation. The Mosaic Law, which 
Paul conceives as primarily a moral Law, was designed 
to take the place temporarily of the influence of the 
Spirit, demanding that obedience which the regenerated 
soul gives willingly and necessarily; it is therefore not 
abrogated, but it is superfluous. The ritual elements of 

383 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

the Law Paul regards as types of the New Covenant, but 
he does not develop the conception in detail. This is, 
however, done by one of his followers, the author of the 
anonymous Epistle to the Hebrews, who expounds the 
significance of the more important rites and shows that 
their fulfilment in Jesus makes unnecessary their further 
observance. The author of the Epistle of Barnabas car- 
ries out the same conception to an extravagant extreme. 
Not only is the ritual Law symbolic; it was never in- 
tended by God to be put into practice at all. But at the 
moment when it was being given the Jews sinned by 
worshiping the golden calf, and by way of punishment 
an evil spirit was permitted to deceive them into the 
behef that the observance of this mass of useless and 
burdensome ceremonies would be rewarded by all imagin- 
able blessings. 

The conceptions of the rewards of virtue and the pun- 
ishments of sin which Christianity had inherited from 
Judaism also demanded definition and revision. The older 
Judaism had had no definite belief in a life after death; 
all the sanctions of conduct which it proclaimed related 
to the life on earth. Hence the necessity of a resurrec- 
tion of the body, if all pious Jews were to share in the 
glories of Messiah's Kingdom. But, before the time of 
Christ, the belief that the souls of the just enjoy a purely 
immaterial, spiritual life after death was gaining ground 
among the Jews, and the attempt to reconcile it with 
the accepted belief in the coming Kingdom had led some 
thinkers to represent the latter as rather a spiritual than 
a material Kingdom. This was the solution of the prob- 
lem adopted by Paul, and, seemingly, by John. Paul 
teaches most emphatically the doctrine of the Resurrec- 
tion, of which the resurrection of Jesus was the guarantee, 
but teaches not less emphatically that at the Resurrection 
our material bodies will be transformed into spiritual 
bodies such as was the body of Jesus after His resurrec- 

384 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 

tion. Thus the traditional conception of the Messiah's 
Kingdom merges into the conception of a purely spiritual 
life after death. But even Paul's authority was not 
sufficient to give this doctrine universal currency. For 
many centuries the belief in the resurrection of the gross 
material body was one of the most distinctive features 
of the Christian faith and was defended by some of its 
representatives with all the resources of ancient science. 
Indeed, I think one may say that the issue has never 
been definitely settled, that these essentially incompatible 
conceptions still maintain their ancient rivalry in certain 
circles of the Christian Church. 

It would seem that the problems connected with the 
nature of Jesus' own person and His relation to God 
provoked no acute discussion until Christianity came into 
contact with Greek thought. He had called Himself the 
" Messiah," " Son of God," and '' Son of Man," and 
had declared that He alone knew God, but there is nothing 
to indicate that He gave any detailed explanation of His 
meaning. In default of any such explanation His dis- 
ciples would naturally interpret such expressions in ac- 
cordance with the ideas which they already attached to 
them. 

These ideas were themselves diverse and lacking in 
definition. Some conceived the Messiah as a man, a 
descendant of David, who was to be anointed with the 
Spirit of God to enable him to perform the work to 
which he was called. So also was Jesus conceived by 
some to be a man who had been anointed by the Spirit 
at the time of His baptism by John. Others thought 
that the Messiah was a spiritual being, existing in heaven 
before his appearance on earth. Jesus was conceived by 
some in the same way, and various theories were pro- 
posed to explain the relation between the preexisting 
Christ and the man Jesus. According to one, Jesus was 
a man upon whom the Christ descended at His baptism; 
25 385 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

according to another, the Christ was united to Jesus from 
His conception or birth, taking the place of the ordinary- 
human soul; according to yet another, the Jesus who 
walked and taught in Palestine was not a man, possessed 
of a material body, but was the Christ himself. His 
body being merely an apparition or phantom. And of 
each of these theories there arose in later ages many di- 
verse forms. 

The most influential of the Christian thinkers, Paul 
and John, taught that Jesus was a Divine Being whose 
relation to God might be symbolized or expressed — it is 
not clear which — by the word " Son " ; that He had come 
down to earth in order to save mankind; that He had 
now returned to heaven and had been invested with su- 
preme power in order to continue the work which He had 
begun on earth. This doctrine Paul taught, not on his 
personal authority, but upon the authority of certain 
" visions " and *' revelations " which had been given di- 
rectly to him. The precise nature of the relation signified 
by the word " Son " Paul does not fully explain, but 
he intimates that the revelations contained more than he 
sees fit to tell in his letters. 

The Development of the Gospel Among the 
Gentiles 

When Christianity came in contact with Hellenism its 
fundamental conceptions at once entered upon a course 
of further definition and enlargement. Many of the 
Gentile converts were familiar with current systems of 
theology and philosophy, and it was inevitable that they 
should endeavor to assimilate their new faith to their 
old convictions. And it so happened that the ideas of 
some of these systems resembled those of Christianity 
sufficiently to make the identification comparatively easy. 

For three hundred years before the time of Christ 
the ideas of the Greek philosophers, and in particular 

386 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 

those of the Orphics, Pythagoreans, Platonists and Stoics, 
had been spread far and wide throughout the Orient by 
the dissemination of the Greek language and Hterature 
which followed the conquests of Alexander. They had 
met and mingled with other ideas of the most diverse 
origin, with the religions of Anatolia, of Persia, of Baby- 
lonia and of Egypt, with astrology, itself a complex 
product, and with many elements the origin of which 
can no longer be traced. And, most important of all, 
in the mind of Philo, the devout and brilliant Jew of 
Alexandria, whose long life comprised that of Jesus 
within its confines, these ideas had effected their most 
perfect amalgamation with the Hebrew theology. About 
the same time, in the middle or latter half of the first 
century, there was produced in Egypt that strange little 
book Poemander, the most important and perhaps the 
first of a group of tractates of uncertain dates, now pass- 
ing under the name of " Thrice Greatest Hermes," the 
purpose of which is to propagate, under the ostensible 
authority of the Egyptian god Tat or Hermes, a philo- 
sophical religion derived chiefly from Plato and the 
Stoics. 

These two, the works of Philo and the Hermetic 
books, are the most important surviving monuments of 
a movement which must have exerted considerable influ- 
ence upon the speculations of the years immediately pre- 
ceding and following the Christian era. The systems 
which they present are much alike in their fundamental 
ideas and both resemble in a very striking way the teach- 
ings of the primitive Christian faith. Both recognize 
one God, the Father of the All, whose essence is Light, 
Intellect and Goodness, and a Son of God, the Logos, 
commonly translated "Word" but more properly 
" Thought," also called the " Image of God " and the 
" Wisdom of God," who is the Maker and Sustainer of 
the universe. Both speak of a " Breath " or " Spirit " 

387 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

of God to which various attributes are assigned but 
which is not clearly distinguished from the Logos. Both 
regard man as containing or capable of receiving a por- 
tion of the Logos or Spirit of God and therefore as him- 
self, actually or potentially, a '' son of God," although in 
an inferior sense. Both conceive man's salvation as con- 
sisting in return to God ; both teach that salvation neces- 
sarily implies repentance for sin and conversion to a holy 
life through which man becomes more and more like 
God. And, most significant of all, both teach that man's 
aspirations towards holiness are initiated and supported 
by the inflow of a divine power into his soul, called by 
Philo the Logos or Spirit, by Hermes the Nous or Intel- 
lect. The Hermetic books even describe the transforma- 
tion of the evil soul into a holy soul in the very lan- 
guage of the New Testament, as a " new birth," or 
" regeneration." 

So strong was the affinity between Christianity and 
this type of thinking, which is generally known as " Alex- 
andrian," that some measure of coalescence between them 
was inevitable. Even the Epistle to the Hebrews de- 
scribes Jesus' person and office in language nearly the 
same as that used by Philo of the Logos, and towards 
the end of the first century John, in the Prologue to his 
Gospel, identifies Jesus of Nazareth with the Incarnate 
Logos, the Maker of the universe, in whom is Life and 
Light. 

This was but the beginning of a process which con- 
tinued in unabated activity for nearly two hundred years. 
Christian thinkers eagerly studied, not only the Alex- 
andrian philosophy, but also its sources in the writings 
of Plato and the Stoics, and found so much that seemed to 
them true, and helpful in formulating and explaining the 
truths of Christianity, that some were driven to accept 
Philo's theory, that Plato had known the books of Moses, 
while others took the more liberal view, that the Spirit 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 

of God had not disdained to enlighten the minds even of 
pagans, enabling them to attain to truths beyond their 
unaided powers. This movement reached its climax in 
Clement of Alexandria and his pupil Origen, the latter of 
whom, by far the most learned man and the most able 
thinker produced by ancient Christianity, developed a 
system of Christian philosophy into which so much of 
pagan origin had been introduced that its author was 
branded a heretic by the generations that followed him. 

But the borrowing was not all on the side of the 
Christians. There arose in the course of the late first 
and early second centuries a number of sects, usually 
described as Christian, many of which really have little 
in common with traditional Christianity except the recog- 
nition of Jesus as the manifestation on earth of a superior 
spiritual being, come with a message of salvation to man- 
kind, while others are wholly pagan. These sects are 
usually called " Gnostic," a word derived from the Greek 
word yo-fffwv, which means " knowledge," more especially 
some knowledge not possessed by most men. The knowl- 
edge which the Gnostics professed to possess was knowl- 
edge of the spiritual universe, of its origin, nature and 
relation <to this material world and to man. In develop- 
ing their systems they used with truly catholic impartiality 
material drawn from Greek philosophy, from the Old 
and New Testaments and from all the mythologies of the 
ancient world. They also pinned their faith to the utter- 
ances of certain " prophets " or " seers " — we would call 
them nowadays " mediums " and " clairvoyants " — and 
wove into their systems the supposed revelations thus 
obtained of the spiritual world. Many of them, more- 
over, claimed that their doctrines had been derived by 
tradition from the Apostles themselves. 

Gnosticism exerted a veritable fascination upon many 
minds and for a time it seemed as though Christianity 
were in danger of being dissolved into a multitude of 

389 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

semi-pagan sects. But the leaders of the Church met 
the danger by an appeal from fancy to fact. They had 
in their hands the writings of the men who had seen 
the Lord and had been taught by Him — in which of 
them were these strange doctrines to be found? In the 
early part of the second century, when Gnosticism first 
became influential, men still survived who had heard 
the Apostles, and in the latter part there were many 
who had learned their Christanity from those first hearers 
— ^as for example Irenseus, who refers with deep feeling 
to his memories of the aged Poly carp's anecdotes of 
John, the Disciple of the Lord — these men were asked 
to say whether these fantastic theories had ever been 
part of the genuine oral tradition of the Church. 

Thus the reaction against Gnosticism checked the 
tendency to interpret Christianity in terms of Greek phi- 
losophy and threw Christian theologians back upon the 
Old Testament and the Apostolic tradition, especially as 
handed down in written form. And if this was true 
of the eastern Greek-speaking half of the Empire, where 
the influence of Greek culture had always been strongest, 
it was still more true of the Latin-speaking western 
half. It was not that the barrier of language had pre- 
vented the spread of Alexandrian ideas, for Greek was 
the language of the western as well as of the eastern 
Christians for a hundred years or more, but rather that 
the genius of the Latin mind was different from that 
of the Greek. Its bent was rather towards law and state- 
craft than towards metaphysical speculation, and it found 
more congenial occupation in drawing from the Scriptures 
a definite system of doctrine and code of practice, a theory 
of the Church's rights and duties, than in peering into 
the mysteries of the spiritual world. 

The struggle with Gnosticism was also a chief cause 
for the transformation of the theory of the work of the 
Spirit which was taking place during the second century, 

390 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 

and which may be summed up by saying that in the first 
century the Spirit inspired whomsoever He would, while 
in the third He worked only through the medium of the 
sacraments. 

I have already shown that from the beginning it had 
been found necessary to put some restrictions upon the 
" liberty of prophesying." The utterances of supposedly 
inspired speakers were to be judged by the standard of 
the accepted doctrines of the Church ; if they were found 
inconsistent with them, the " spirits " possessing the 
prophets were adjudged evil spirits. The progressive 
development and definition of the doctrine of the Church 
which resulted in part from contact with Greek thought 
and in part from the battle against Gnosticism imposed 
still more restrictions upon the utterances of the prophets, 
and inclined the Church authorities to look with disfavor 
upon manifestations which might at any moment get 
beyond control. Moreover, the credence given by the 
Gnostics to prophets and seers tended to bring prophecy 
into still greater discredit with the Church authorities 
and still further disposed them to rest their case ex- 
.clusively upon the Old Testament and the written and 
oral tradition of the Apostles. 

One important result of this depreciation of contem- 
porary prophecy was the formation of the canon of the 
New Testament. The theory entertained by many schol- 
ars that the writings of the Apostles and other men 
of the first generation only gradually became recognized 
as inspired is at variance with all that we know of the 
point of view of the early Christians. Paul, John the 
author of the Apocalypse, Clement of Rome, Hermas, 
" Barnabas," Ignatius, all claim the authority of inspira- 
tion for their writings, and it is not in the least probable 
that those to whom those writings were addressed dis- 
allowed the claim. There w^ere many other works now 
lost which laid claim to inspiration and their number was 

391 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

constantly increasing; indeed every new movement gave 
rise to a flood of such works, some the product of sincere 
visionaries, but most of them deliberate forgeries. The 
formation of the canon of the New Testament was there- 
fore rather a process of exclusion than of inclusion, of 
rejecting books regarded more or less generally as in- 
spired, not of recognizing in the writings accepted an 
inspiration not formerly acknowledged. 

The decline of the ministry of the Spirit was also 
furthered by the gradual disappearance of the spiritual 
gifts themselves, at least in their more striking and sensa- 
tional forms. These phenomena are apt to attend crises 
in the spiritual life of the individual and were, no doubt, 
most frequent among converts won from the outside 
world. But when the new generations came into being, 
children of Christian parents, born and bred in a Chris- 
tian atmosphere, they could have felt no need for any 
such violent wrench or conversion from the habits and 
tastes of a lifetime. Their religious life probably pur- 
sued, as we see to-day in Christian families, a more calm 
and equable course. 

Protests against this tendency were not lacking. In 
the latter part of the second century Montanus, a pres- 
byter of Phrygia, tried to restore the waning ministry 
of the Spirit to its pristine position of importance and 
founded a denomination which for several generations 
remained outside the Catholic Church. Yet even among 
the Montanists the same factors were operating, and the 
attempt failed. The spiritual gifts, however, long con- 
tinued to appear more or less frequently. They must 
have been fairly common throughout the second century 
— Irenaeus speaks of them several times — ^and even in the 
third, Origen testifies to their occurrence. One of them, 
at least, the power of casting out demons, the Church 
officially recognized in the creation of an order of the 
ministry, the exorcists, with an appropriate ritual. But 

392 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 

by the fourth century they were unusual and had entirely 

lost their original position of importance. 

Yet faith in the reality of the indwelling Spirit did 
not pass away with the decline in frequency of the more 
extraordinary phenomena and depreciation in the value 
formerly ascribed to them. Even in the very beginning 
of the Gospel Paul had taught that the fruit of the Spirit 
is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, 
faithfulness, meekness, temperance {Gal. 5:22); that 
whether there he prophecies, they shall he done away; 
whether there he tongues, they shall cease; whether there 
he knowledge, it shall he done away; but that love never 
faileth (I Cor. 13:8). And so, now that the prophecies 
and the tongues and the " gnosis " were passing away, 
the more spiritually minded among Christians came, with 
Paul, to see that love to God and man and the holy life 
which love inspires constituted the best evidence of the 
Spirit's presence. 

But that not all were capable of such spiritual in- 
sight is indicated by the growing tendency to regard the 
sacraments as not merely an occasion upon which or a 
means through which the Spirit was received but as inr 
struments which necessarily conveyed the Spirit to the 
recipient. I shall be able to speak of the Eucharist only; 
the development was of the same general character in 
the case of the other sacraments. 

The primitive Eucharist, or Common Meal, of the 
Jewish Christian Church, was a pecuHarly Christian rite. 
The idea of using food in a sacramental way, that is, 
as a means of conveying spiritual blessings to the par- 
ticipant, was foreign to the Jewish mind. But when 
the Eucharist was transplanted into the Gentile world, 
the ideas originally associated with it encountered in the 
minds of Gentile converts conceptions of different origin 
which were sufficiently akin to them to make their fusion 
inevitable. Of these conceptions three call for special 

393 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

mention. The first is the notion that by eating a sacri- 
ficial animal which a god had entered into and possessed, 
one may participate in the very substance of the god and 
acquire his immortality. The second is the principle 
upon which much of the ritual of magic was based, that 
by repeating certain formulae of consecration over given 
substances certain properties may be conferred upon them, 
and, especially, that otherwise inert substances may in 
this way be given medicinal virtue. The third is the 
theory which is implied in a " Mystery '* in the original 
sense of the word. A " Mystery '* was a pantomime, 
representing some event, usually some tragic event, in 
the life of a god. It was believed that the persons 
participating in the Mystery, or, at a later date, merely 
witnessing its performance, acquired thereby special favor 
in the eyes of the god and would receive from him bless- 
ings not granted to others. 

There is no doubt that these ideas were prevalent 
in the ancient world, although much uncertainty still 
hangs over their origin, the extent of their diffusion and 
the nature of the rites in which they were expressed. 
And there is also no doubt that the later development 
of the doctrine of the sacraments and especially the lan- 
guage in which it was formulated were influenced by 
these ideas. The unceasing efforts to define the relation 
between the body and blood of Jesus and the elements 
of the Eucharist, the increasing importance of the act 
of consecration, the tendency to regard the elements as 
mechanically communicating grace, the development of 
the theory that the Eucharist is not merely a commemora- 
tion but an actual repetition of the sacrifice on the Cross — 
these are all indications of the influence of these ideas upon 
Christian thought. Yet they were not the only or the 
chief reasons for the supreme sanctity which was and 
still is attached to the Eucharist by the Church. These 

, 394 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 

reasons lie, as I have shown, much deeper, in the personal 
experience of individuals. 

It was this feeling of reverence for the Eucharist 
which ultimately led to its separation from the Common 
Meal. It was difficult to maintain throughout a meal in 
which many persons took part the atmosphere of devo- 
tion which was appropriate to the occasion, and hence 
the custom arose of observing the two rites at different 
times, the Common Meal coming more and more to be 
regarded as a work of charity only at which the poor of 
the Church were fed. It is probable that this distinction 
had come to be observed by some churches in the second 
century, but the details of the process are unknown. It is, 
however, certain that meals resembling the primitive 
Eucharist survived in some branches of the Church for 
many centuries. 

It was largely under the influence of the foreign 
ideas to which I have above referred that the vague con- 
ceptions of the first and second centuries were finally 
defined and worked up into the carefully reasoned theory 
of the Catholic Church as the sole dispenser of salvation 
which meets us in an advanced stage of development in 
the early part of the third century and was completed 
in the fourth. The fundamental principle of this theory 
is the doctrine that supernatural virtue can be conferred 
in no other way than by one who possesses it. The 
layman can receive the Spirit only through the sacra- 
ments, the sacraments derive their virtue only from their 
consecration, the consecration is effective only when per- 
formed by an ordained priest, a priest can be ordained 
only by another ordained priest, and if one follows back 
the series of ordinations one ultimately reaches the 
Apostles. The first fairly consistent presentation of 
this theory is found in the writings of Cyprian, Bishop 
of Carthage and Martyr, in the middle of the third cen- 
sus 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

tury. For example, in Letter 73 he says, speaking of 
the Church : She it is who alone holds and possesses all 
the authority of her Spouse and Lord; over her we pre- 
side, for her honor and unity we fight, her good name 
and fame alike we defend with faithfid devotion. We, 
with the divine permission, water the thirsty people of 
God, we guard the margins of the fountains of Life, 

While these changes in the ideas of Christians as to 
'the conditions under which the Spirit, which was the life 
of the Church, was to be obtained undoubtedly had much 
to do with the increase in the power of the clergy which 
took place between the first and the third centuries, and 
is, from my present point of view, the most interesting of 
the factors working towards that end, it was by no means 
the only one. Probably of equal and possibly of greater 
weight was the imperative need of a central authority 
making for unity, to counteract the numerous disruptive 
tendencies of the period. The multiplication of new doc- 
trinal theories, the insidious attractions of pagan civili- 
zation, the furious, if intermittent, blasts of persecution, 
made it necessary to vest somewhere the right to define 
what the Church believed, to discipline offenders against 
morality, to strengthen weak brethren and to fix the con- 
ditions upon which the lapsed might be received back into 
the fold. Eventually these and other powers were 
lodged in the hands of the bishops, either as individuals, 
or, collectively, in council assembled. 

Whatever the causes, the practical result of their 
operation was the emergence of a conception of the Chris- 
tian Church as a close corporation, consisting primarily 
of a body of ordained clergy who possessed the ex- 
clusive right of giving or of withholding the Holy Spirit, 
that is to say, eternal salvation, at their discretion. And 
this doctrine was the cornerstone upon which was erected 
the imposing fabric of the mediaeval Church. 

396 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 

Let me sum up briefly the important features of the 
theory which I have been putting before you. The es- 
sence of early Christianity is not to be found in its insti- 
tutions, ritual or doctrine. Of these, those which it 
received from Jesus were few and simple. Others it 
inherited from Judaism, others it borrowed with more 
or less modification from contemporary Hellenistic cul- 
ture, still others it devised itself. But at the very out- 
set it essentially was the kindling of the spiritual life 
in the hearts of many men under the same conditions — 
namely, the preaching of Jesus as Lord and Saviour. 
This was then and still is an extraordinary and inex- 
plicable phenomenon. Never before, so far as is known, 
had such multitudes been affected, never before had such 
fruits in the way of reformation of character and puri- 
fication of moral ideals been observed. This spiritual 
life was accompanied in the beginning with other mani- 
festations of little or no moral value, which in time passed 
away. It was associated even in the minds of the first 
Christians with the sacraments, and ecclesiastical theory 
in time sought to chain it down to them, but it has never 
been bound by the bond. It has been more conspicuously 
manifested at certain times and among certain persons, 
but its essential elements, namely, a new attitude towards 
God, a new aversion towards sin, the inflow of a new 
consciousness pervaded by joy and love, seemingly com- 
ing from without, sustained and from time to time re- 
newed by fresh inflows, especially in connection with the 
Eucharist — these have never disappeared from any 
branch of the Christian Church. It has created a new 
terminology, inspired a new literature, found expression 
in new liturgies, rituals and doctrines, and has exercised 
incalculable influence upon the evolution of the Western 
world. 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

(Only books accessible in English are mentioned and only a few 

of the more important of them.) 

Sources : 

The New Testament. 

The Apostolic Fathers. Complete editions, with text and trans- 
lations by J. B. Lightfoot and J. R. Harmar, 1891, and by Kir- 
sopp Lake in The Loeb Library, 2 vols., 1913, 1913. Editions of 
the several works, with notes and translations: Clement of 
Rome, Ignatius and Polycarp, by J. B. Lightfoot in The Apostolic 
Fathers, 5 vols., 1885-90 ; TJte Epistle of Barnabas, by W. Cun- 
ningham, 1877: The Didache, by P. Schaff in The Oldest 
Church Manual, 1886. Translations, usually not very good, of 
nearly all the early literature will be found in The Ante-Nicene 
Fathers, American edition, 1885, ^* ^^Q- 

Histories : A. C. McGiffert, The Apostolic Age, and R. Rainy, The 
Ancient Catholic Church, both in The International Theological 
Library; L. M. O. Duchesne, Early History of the Christian 
Church, 2 vols., 1909, 1913; P. Wernle, The Beginnings of 
Christianity, 2 vols., 1903, 1904; S. J. Case, The Evolution of 
Early Christianity, 191 4. 

The Jewish and Hellenistic Environment: J. Drummond, The 
Jewish Messiah, 1877; Philo Judceus and the Jewish Alex- 
andrian Philosophy, 2 vols., 1888; E. Schiirer, The History of 
the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ, 3 vols, in 5, 
1890-91 ; C. A. Briggs, The Messiah of the Apostles; Sir Wil- 
liam M. Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire; E. Hatch, 
The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian 
Church, being The Flibbert Lectures, 1888 ; C. Clemen, Primitive 
Christianity and its non-Jewish Sources, 1912; W. M. Groton, 
The Christian Eucharist and the Pagan Cults, being The Bohlen 
Lectures, 1913; C. Bigg, The Christian Platonists of Alex- 
andria, being The Bampton Lectures, 1886, 2d edition, 1913; 
F. Cumont, Astronomy and Religion among the Greeks and 
Romans, 1912 ; G. R. S. Mead, Thrice Greatest Hermes, 3 vols., 
1916, and. Fragments of a Faith Forgotten ii.e.. Gnosticism), 
1906 ; F. Legge, Forerunners and Rivals of Christianity, 2 vols., 
1915. 



398 



CHAPTER XIV 

MEDIEVAL CHRISTIANITY 
BY ARTHUR C ROWLAND 

In discussing a religion which is considered by its 
adherents as God's direct and final revelation of truth 
delivered through his own person, the selection of a par- 
ticular period within which the religion assumed a char- 
acter of its own capable of being designated by any 
such descriptive term as mediaeval might at first sight 
appear illogical. Yet while it can be said that Chris- 
tianity is the same to-day as it was in the Middle Ages, 
and the same in the Middle Ages as it was in the time of 
the Apostles, it is equally true that, like any other living 
thing, Christianity is constantly changing and developing, 
and that it is not the same in any two succeeding genera- 
tions. Under different environments the human mind 
reacts in different ways towards the same body of 
principles. 

The Middle Ages as generally understood comprise 
the thousand years that intervened between the collapse 
of the Roman imperial organization in Western Europe 
and the Reformation or, in round numbers, the period 
from 500 to 1500. The old idea that this was a stagnant 
epoch, that such a cycle of years could be fittingly char- 
acterized by any such term as the Dark Ages, has long 
been given up. We now know that the human mind 
was as active then as at any other time, that the deepest 
questions of philosophy and life were propounded and 
answered, that constant change and readjustment were 
going on as at other times. Nevertheless, there were 
in the Middle Ages certain traits and certain conditions 
that serve to mark them off both from the ancient and 

399 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

from the modern world. These formed an environment 
which caused the men of that age to envisage their re- 
Hgion and its mission in a particular way and gave to 
mediaeval Christianity a character of its own. 

The mediaeval Church was distinguished from primi- 
tive Christianity by a systematized theology and a highly 
developed form of organization ; and from modern Chris- 
tianity by the absence of the competition and rivalry that 
has existed since the appearance of Protestantism. From 
both ancient and modern times it was distinguished by 
the fact that it did not exist side by side with a highly 
developed political society and so did not have to modify 
its rules or its theories at the behest of the State but could 
confidently assume a superiority to national organizations. 
Finally, the ignorance of natural science and of the 
modern conception of the laws of nature gave to the 
religion of that day a character in some respects far 
different from that of modern religion. By keeping these 
three features of the Middle Ages in mind — first, an 
elaborate church organization that had no rivals ; second, 
the conception of a physical universe governed and con- 
trolled by the caprice of supernatural powers rather than 
by immutable law ; and third, a primitive and incoherent 
state organization incapable of performing the most im- 
portant tasks of society — we are in a position to under- 
stand some of the special features of mediaeval 
Christianity. 

When the religion of Christ became the universal 
faith of Europe, the development of an elaborate insti- 
tutional life became a necessity of existence. Its wide 
and rapid extension after the days of Constantine meant 
for the mass of the inhabitants of Europe a conversion 
in name only. Pagan habits of thought, old standards 
of conduct and morality, could not be changed with the 
same ease as the practice of the pagan cults had been 
abolished at the command of the Roman government. 

400 



Li 



MEDIv^VAL CHRISTIANITY 

It was possible, however, to enforce an outward con- 
formity to elaborate ceremonies and rites, the observance 
of which could be enforced on a population however 
indifferent to the inner spirit of Christ's teachings, and 
thus to create a concrete institution that would command 
the loyalty and devotion of a half -barbarous world. This 
development took place largely at the hands of Italian 
churchmen imbued with the ideas, and inheriting the 
genius of the men who had created the Roman Empire. 
The creative genius of Rome, as is well known, lay chiefly 
in law and administration. It is not strange, therefore, 
that church institutions took on a strongly legalized tinge 
and that the conception of formal law rather than that 
of the inspiration of the Spirit should have governed the 
relations of the ordinary man to God. A degree of for- 
mality grew up which threatened to impoverish spiritual 
life; an insistence on external acts in the religious cult 
which seemed capable of developing into a contract be- 
tween the Church and its members whereby the former 
would guarantee ultimate salvation in return for the 
performance of specified acts of worship. In other 
words, mediaeval Christianity was threatened with the 
evil inherent in every highly developed institution, the 
danger of sacrificing the spirit to the form. 

That this danger did not overwhelm the Church, that 
Christianity did not cease to embody the highest spiritual 
ideals of the age, is largely due to the influence of that 
most characteristic form of mediaeval religion — Mon- 
asticism. In origin a revolt from the Church, a protest 
against the worldliness that threatened to overwhelm it 
after the conversion of Constantine, monasticism was 
soon reconciled to the general organization and promptly 
took its place as the expression of the highest ideal of 
Christianity. Withdrawn from the world, interested only 
indirectly in questions of government and discipline in 
the Church at large, the monk could devote himself to 
26 401 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

the interests of the mind and the spirit to a degree im- 
possible for the bishop or the secular priest. 

The type of piety thus developed does, indeed, strike 
us as something exotic. With its passivism, its asceti- 
cism, its pessimistic views of the world, it was more 
oriental than occidental. But Christianity was an eastern 
religion, and the logical mind of the Middle Ages saw in 
monasticism the true expression of its inner spirit. The 
great problem of Christianity in all ages has been to recon- 
cile Christ's teachings with the standards of conduct im- 
posed by practical life; to adapt the doctrine of brotherly 
love to the exigencies of the struggle for existence; and 
to determine what compromise, if any, shall be accepted 
between the rules of conduct laid down by Jesus and 
the needs of those who wish to succeed in the world. 
These questions are no less pressing to-day in the midst 
of the economic competition of the modern world and 
the bloodshed of national war than they were under the 
feudal regime. Each age has sought its own answer to 
the problem with greater or less success. What that an- 
swer shall be to-day is baffling the greatest religious 
leaders. But in the Middle Ages, it was found in monas- 
ticism. For the man of the world whether layman or 
secular priest or bishop, the answer was found in the 
standard of conduct that seemed to be required by the 
necessities of active life, by the desire for wealth, the 
love of power, the need of pleasure, the demands of am- 
bition. For the monk it lay in the renunciation of all 
these things, the voluntary acceptance of poverty, the sac- 
rifice of the domestic affections, the complete surrender 
of the will to a human superior and with it all thought of 
human ambition ; and within the walls of the monastery 
absolute equality among the brothers without regard to 
their former rank in the outer world. 

Thus two types of Christianity were recognized in the 
Middle Ages. One was for the world at large, where 

402 



MEDIEVAL CHRISTIANITY 

though the teachings of Christ were held up as an ideal, 
a certain compromise was recognized as necessary, the 
Church with its rites and sacraments serving as mediator 
and providing for the ultimate salvation of its children 
notwithstanding their maculation by the world. The 
other was for the chosen of God whose spiritual strength 
enabled them to follow literally what the men of that age 
conceived as the pure teachings of Christ. As to which 
of these two types was the higher, the Middle Ages did 
not hesitate to pronounce. To them the monk was the 
true exemplifier of religion. The term by which he was 
designated and which served to distinguish him not only 
from the laity but from the ordinary clergy was religiosus, 
" the religious man." The choice of the monastic life 
by one who was already a Christian and a member of the 
Church was described as conversion, a term that reminds 
us curiously of Puritan phraseology and at bottom means 
the same thing — a deep religious experience that sets one 
apart from the world and makes him a participant in the 
communioji of saints. To the Puritan no man was a 
member of Christ's Church who had not felt a conviction 
of sin in his own person, who had not cast off the old 
man and thus been born again into the Kingdom. But 
to the Middle Ages this Christian rebirth took place at 
baptism. It was then that the old Adam was cast off 
and the devil and all his works were renounced. Thus 
all men found themselves members of the Church with- 
out conscious choice of their own and secure of ultimate 
salvation, provided they remained her faithful children 
and followed the rites she prescribed. In monasticism 
was to be found the higher spiritual life of the age, while 
the doctrine of purgatory developed to reconcile the de- 
mands of divine justice with the acceptance of such 
diverse standards of life for different elements in the 
Church. 

Thus monasticism stands forth as one of the char- 

403 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

acteristic features of mediaeval Christianity, a feature the 
significance of which was due to the elaborate develop- 
men): of the Church as an institution and to the mechani- 
cal nature of the religious life which institutionalism fos- 
ters among the great mass of mankind. 

Though the monks formed an integral part of the 
Church they followed ideals and adopted customs which 
dissociated them from the general life. The cure of souls 
and the management of the property and of the political 
interests of the Church were tasks quite foreign to their 
fundamental interests. Hence, shut off and protected 
from such cares, they were free to devote themselves to 
other and more altruistic interests. It was they who were 
the leading scholars and the chief educators of the Middle 
Ages. It was they who revived the arts which had almost 
perished on the downfall of ancient civilization, and con- 
tinued to foster them until culture began again to revive. 
Their charity was the chief solace of the poor when the 
wealth of the secular church was largely devoted to 
worldly ends. And it was they who furnished the mis- 
sionaries who converted heathen and barbarous Europe 
to Christianity. 

Since the monks, unlike the secular clergy, did not 
enter into competition with lay society, they were free 
to adopt principles of organization elsewhere unknown 
in the Middle Ages. The Church at large, like feudal 
society in general, was thoroughly aristocratic. Small 
chance therein for the poor man save as a parish priest 
who had no hope of preferment, and who was subject 
to the whims and caprice of the rich lay patron to whom 
he owed his place. The bishop's office, the cathedral pre- 
bend, the rich benefice, were reserved for the sons of 
the aristocracy who but too often used the ecclesiastical 
revenues to rival the pride and pomp of the lay nobles. 
The government of the Church, then, would have been 
in the hands of the nobility as fully as was the government 

404 



MEDIEVAL CHRISTIANITY 

of lay society if it had not been for the counteracting 
influence of nionasticism. The veneration in which the 
monks as a class were held because of their exemplifica- 
tion of the ideals of mediaeval Christianity caused them 
to be summoned in large numbers to the highest positions 
in the hierarchy; and in the monastery itself low birth 
was no bar to preferment. In fact, the monastic organi- 
zation was in theory purely democratic. The virtue of 
humility was supposed to be a bar to any claim of birth 
or family. We are told for instance of a king of the 
Franks, the uncle of Charlemagne, who took up the 
monastic profession at Monte Cassino and was promptly 
set to a scullion's tasks in the abbey kitchen to prove the 
genuineness of his religious calling; and similar stories 
abound in the literature of the age. On the other hand, 
however humble his origin, a monk of piety and ability 
might rise to the highest position in his own house and 
thence be drafted into the secular hierarchy of the Church. 
In this way it was constantly acquiring new blood and 
renewing its strength. For a man without family influ- 
ence there was little opportunity in the Middle Ages 
save in the Church and even there the door tO' influence 
opened only through the monastery. It has been re- 
marked that just as in Napoleon's army every soldier felt 
that he carried in his knapsack the baton of a field mar- 
shal, so in the Middle Ages every monk realized that the 
highest positions in the Church lay within his reach. The 
Church could thus command the best ability of the age; 
the State could not. And this is one of the reasons for 
the superiority of the former over the latter in that period. 
To pass over the case of bishops, the papal chair was 
more than once occupied by men of humble origin and 
in every instance, so far as I know, these men rose through 
the monastery. The mighty Gregory VII was the son 
of a poor artisan of Northern Italy; Benedict XI was 
said to have started life as a shepherd boy; Benedict XII 

405 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

as a baker; Nicholas V as a poor doctor; Sixtus V as a 
swineherd; John XXII as a cobbler; Nicholas IV, Coe- 
lestine V and Sixtus IV were the sons of peasants ; while 
Alexander V and Hadrian IV were once outcasts and 
beggars. The case of the last-named, Hadrian IV, is 
especially interesting as he was the only Englishman who 
ever occupied the papal chair. It should be noted, said an 
exulting monastic chronicler of his own day, how this 
man was raised up out of the very dust to sit among 
princes. Hadrian's father was a poor English clerk who 
deserted his wife and family in order to enter the abbey 
of St. Albans, thus reducing them to such poverty that 
the son was obliged to apply daily at the door of his 
father's monastery for alms. Much scandalized at such 
conduct the father drove him away with vituperation and 
the young lad, ashamed to beg or to dig in his own coun- 
try, crossed over to France. Here, too, his begging met 
with scant returns and he wandered south into Provence 
where he had the good fortune to excite the pity and 
interest of a house of regular canons. Being a youth 
of pleasing appearance and ready tongue he was finally 
invited to join the order. He applied himself to learning 
and finally acquired so great a reputation for eloquence 
and wisdom that he was elected abbot. His administra- 
tion did not run smoothly, however, and his monks twice 
cited him to Rome to answer charges of misgovernment. 
On the second occasion, the pope acceded to the petition 
of the brothers and sent them home to choose themselves 
a new abbot while he retained their deposed chief at his 
own court, made him bishop of Albano and later, be- 
cause of his abiHties, sent him as papal legate to Den- 
mark and Norway to compose the ecclesiastical troubles 
of those kingdoms. Shortly after his return there oc- 
curred a vacancy in the papacy and this one-time beggar 
ascended the chair of St. Peter by unanimous choice of 
the cardinals. Our English chronicler adds an unexpected 

406 



MEDIEVAL CHRISTIANITY 

note to the effect that when he had become head of the 
Church, Hadrian richly endowed the abbey of St. Albans 
'' out of reverence for his father's memory." 

But the opening of a career to talent, whatever its 
origin, was not the only democratic feature of monasti- 
cism. Nowhere can that characteristic be better observed 
than in its treatment of women. To the modern mind 
the Church has always seemed somewhat unfair in its 
attitude toward women in spite of their devotion to re- 
ligion. It has always denied them a share in its govern- 
ment. In their hands the sacraments would be dese- 
crated. Entrance into the holy of holies has been for- 
bidden them. The priesthood would be degraded by 
the ordination of such candidates. In fact, though in 
all ages the Church has received its greatest support and 
devotion from women, its government and its offices 
and emoluments have been reserved for men. Not only 
this, but too often it has looked upon woman as the chief 
seat and instrument of the devil in his warfare upon 
man. Now in theory monasticism shared this view and 
in fact did much to foster and spread it, as was perhaps 
•natural in an institution that laid such stress upon the 
virtue of chastity. But in practice it followed a different 
line and gave almost as much opportunity to women 
as to men. The convent of nuns is as characteristic a 
feature as the men's monastery, and that institution fur- 
nished a long list of saints canonized by the Church, 
which thus admitted that women might be mediators for 
humanity in heaven, although they were not fit thus to 
serve in the earthly church. Even on earth, monasticism 
allowed women a place among the rulers, for they headed 
and directed the convents and the lady abbess was often 
as distinguished a figure as the lord abbot. Nay, there 
was one monastic order, that of Fontevrauld, composed 
of both men and women, wherein the monks as well 
as the nuns were ruled by an abbess and none but a 

407 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

woman could exercise authority over the combined estab- 
lishments. 

The position afforded to women is but one of many 
examples of the elasticity and adaptability of monastic 
institutions. These qualities were largely due to the 
remarkable organization worked out by St. Benedict of 
Nursia in the sixth century. He succeeded in establish- 
ing for his followers certain fundamental and clearly 
marked principles of life and conduct, and in creating 
an ideal that changed little from age to age, while allow- 
ing a freedom in details and practice that permitted west- 
ern monasticism to adjust itself to varying conditions of 
environment and varying needs of spiritual life. In this 
respect it differed from the other institutions of the 
Church which tended to become fixed and rigid and in- 
capable of change. Herein lies the explanation of a phe- 
nomenon that has struck most observers, namely, that 
the mediaeval Church, in spite of a rigid system of theol- 
ogy and an elaborate sacramental machinery, was able to 
make use of all forms of religious enthusiasm, and to 
employ and direct ardent spiritual impulses that under 
other conditions would have led to revolt from the 
Church and the destruction of religious unity. Hence 
arose those reforms and revivals that so often recalled 
the Church to a consciousness of its mission and kept 
alive its influence in the hearts of men. Not a single 
reform arose in the Middle Ages, not a single new aspect 
of religious experience and practice, but had its inception 
in monasticism and found expression most often in the 
establishment of new orders or the reorganization of old 
ones. 

Protes:tantism has never shown an equal ability to 
make use of and profit by the varieties of religious ex- 
perience. Too often its leaders and prophets have found 
no place in the existing organization and have found 
themselves driven out and compelled to create new and 

408 



MEDIEVAL CHRISTIANITY 

competing churches. It has been remarked more than 
once that in the Middle Ages John Wesley and White- 
field would have found their places in the existing Church 
and the movement they inspired have been embodied in a 
reform finding expression in a new monastic order. The 
same thing might be said of the great founder of the 
Salvation Army and his followers. I am not sure but 
that even Christian Science, had it arisen in the Middle 
Ages, might not have been shorn of some of its peculiar- 
ities and use made of the undoubted spiritual force that 
characterizes the movement. We might even have had, 
in place of Mother Eddy, a new Saint Mary and the 
cures wrought by her followers might have been attributed 
to her intercession in heaven instead of to what is humor- 
ously designated as Science. 

This power of expansion and adaptability which mon- 
asticism showed m its best days gradually declined as the 
Middle Ages drew toward a close. It was itself an in- 
stitution with rules and forms and ceremonies, and as 
these hardened and became conventionalized monasticism 
displayed less and less ability to meet the new demands, 
the new intellectual and spiritual interests that marked 
the beginnings of the modern world. The last great de- 
velopment in mediaeval monasticism occurred at the be- 
ginning of the thirteenth century under the leadership of 
that most lovable and most Christ-like character of the 
Middle Ages, St. Francis of Assisi. But that much of 
the vitality of monasticism was already spent is seen in 
the rapid deterioration of his order. Scarcely was their 
founder dead when a bitter struggle broke out among the 
Franciscans, some wishing to follow out the literal pre- 
cepts and imitate the spirit of St. Francis, while the ma- 
jority sought to assimilate the order to the older monastic 
institutions. The latter were successful and the Spirituals, 
as their opponents were fittingly designated, fell under 

409 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

ecclesiastical censure and were forced either to submit 
or to be burned as heretics. 

This incident shows how monasticism was losing the 
power to embody and express new needs and impulses. 
That power once lost, there was no other organ then 
existing within the Church that could accomplish a re- 
adjustment between its institutions and the demands of a 
changing world. Herein lies one of the many causes of 
the Reformation. During the fourteenth and fifteenth 
centuries Europe was undergoing some of the greatest 
changes in its history and with the loss of the power of 
internal development the Church was no longer able to 
meet fully the requirements of the new age. There fol- 
lowed the disruption of the Church. Four hundred years 
earlier, Luther might have been the founder of a new 
monastic order instead of the leader of a revolt, but at 
the beginning of the sixteenth century no other course 
was possible for a man of his peculiar temper and fierce 
ardor than the one he followed. It is true that the shock 
of the Refonmation led to a great reaction within the 
older Church and to the formation of a new monastic 
institution, in some respects the most remarkable of all, 
the Society of Jesus. But with the coming of the Jesuits 
the Church had left the Middle Ages behind and entered 
upon its modern period. 

I have pointed out that the institutional development 
of the mediaeval Church threatened it with a legalistic 
conception of salvation highly prejudicial to the highest 
spiritual development, and have indicated some of the 
ways in which this tendency was counterbalanced by 
monasticism. Another characteristic of the period which 
had an influence on religious life was the universal char- 
acter of the Church's authority. It had no rivals. No 
other form of church organization existed in Europe and 
heresy was at all times and in nearly all places absolutely 
negligible. From this circumstance we can trace two 

410 



MEDIEVAL CHRISTIANITY 

consequences : on the part of the Church, an attitude of 
tolerance; and on the part of the masses, a simple and 
child-like attitude toward religion which made the Chris- 
tian cult an integral part of their lives to an extent 
scarcely to be found to-day. 

It may sound strange to some ears to speak of the 
mediaeval Church as tolerant, and yet within certain limits 
this statement is true. So long as the principle of author- 
ity was maintained the Church felt no interest in the sup- 
pression of opinion and discussion or even of criticism 
directed against itself. The line was drawn at any denial 
of the Church's divine power and right to control the 
means and methods of salvation. Outside of the Church 
there is no salvation; such was the statement of St. Cy- 
prian in the third century, and to this principle the Church 
gave unqualified adhesion throughout the Middle Ages. 
Let anyone deny the efficacy of the sacraments adminis- 
tered by a duly qualified priest, even though that priest 
were a sinner of the worst type, and no mercy would be 
shown the rebel; but once the ultimate authority of the 
Church as the mediator of salvation was acknowledged, 
the widest range of discussion and speculation w^as per- 
mitted to those who were clever enough to reconcile their 
positions with this fundamental assumption. Even the 
basic doctrines of theology were freely handled and dis- 
cussed without restraint, and a Berengar of Tours could 
attack such a fundamental doctrine of the Church as 
transubstantiation without stirring up a Gregory VII to 
persecution, for Berengar admitted the final authority of 
the Church. With this reservation there were no ideas 
and no arguments but that could be and were put forward 
and defended by scholars. 

As to criticism of the Church, its practices, acts, and 
shortcomings, there was no attempt at suppression, and 
attacks on ecclesiastical abuses were as open and bitter as 
anything brought forward by the Protestants in the six- 

411 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

teenth century. That such attacks could be tolerated, in 
fact welcomed in some quarters, was due to the absence 
of rival churches. Everyone accepted ithe institution as 
divinely ordained by Heaven and these criticisms were 
regarded with much the same tolerance that we show to 
the bitter tirades of reformers against the corruption and 
incompetence of our own government because we know 
that the general principles of our political institutions are 
loyally accepted by the critics themselves. In the midst of 
this general confidence in the Church even the short- 
comings of Divine Providence might be referred to with- 
out danger of punishment. A popular preacher of the 
thirteenth century in one of his sermons thus alludes to 
the mismanagement of human affairs. A certain mounte- 
bank, he said, was on his deathbed and called to him a 
priest who warned him to make his will. " Very well," 
said the mountebank, " I have two horses. One of them 
I give to the bishop, the other to the king. As to my 
clcxthing, it is to be divided between the baron and the 
other rich men." " But," cried the priest, " what about 
the poor? " " Why," replied the mountebank, '' do you 
not preach to us every day that we should imitate God? 
I am imitating Him, for He gives everything to the rich 
and nothing to the poor." It would be hard to find a more 
caustic comment from a modern socialist. 

Universal acceptance of the Church had another con- 
sequence, namely, the attitude of the common man toward 
religion. It was so much a part of his daily life and 
was accepted as so natural an element of human experi- 
ence that there was none of 'that half-timid, half-apolo- 
getic attitude sometimes met with to-day when the subject 
of religion is broached. There was no separation be- 
tween religion and business or between religion and pleas- 
ure. Sunday was not the Sabbath of the Jews nor the 
Sabbath of the Puritans. It was of itself scarcely more 
sacred to religion than the other six days of the week, 

412 




MEDIEVAL CHRISTIANITY 

save that the compulsory cessation of labor gave a greater 
opportunity for attendance at divine service. When mass 
had been heard, the remainder of the day was frankly 
devoted to pleasure and social enjoyment. But if Sunday 
was not set aside exclusively for religion, neither was 
religion reserved for Sunday. The doors of the church 
stood open all days alike and at any hour one might step 
within to meditate or satisfy the impulse of worship, or 
to use the sacred edifice for any of the ordinary purposes 
of daily life. " Such customs," says a French historian, 
" which seem to us like a violation of the sanctuary were 
fully authorized in the Middle Ages. The Church al- 
lowed the people to amuse themselves and the clergy 
were one with the people in this matter. Religion in 
those days was not sad and austere. Life was not divided 
into two parts, a religious and a worldly. Nothing was 
profane, for religion embraced all of human existence. 
People journeyed along the road of salvation with gay 
hearts. Pilgrimages were often pleasant excursions. Re- 
ligious assemblies, pardons as they are still called in 
Brittany, were noisy and crowded gatherings where 
peddlers, wandering minstrels and clowns opened their 
booths or set up their platforms. One did not pull a 
long face when he entered a church, for the church was a 
continuation of the street and the common meeting place 
of all. The choir, indeed, was reserved for worship, but 
the nave belonged to the people. There meetings were 
held, even councils of war and assemblies of insurgent 
citizens. One went there to stroll about, to exchange 
gossip, to talk business. There on rainy days the fairs 
were held for lack of a better place. The church bell 
was rung for the opening of the market, for town meet- 
ings and for insurrections, as well as for the divine offices. 
The churchman, whether priest or canon, was as worldly 
as the layman, aiid the laymen were as religious as the 
priests. Even among the monks there were jolly souls 

413 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

who were invited to the weddings and the family festivals, 
and who enjoyed good stories even when told against 
themselves. Holy men these, nevertheless, and in spite 
of all very edifying, since they rendered religion lovable 
and caused some Christian ideas to penetrate into the 
rude mass of the people. None of the monks were more 
popular than the Franciscans. In the garb of their order, 
which seems strange to us to-day but differed little from 
the costume of that period, they went about preaching, 
collecting, begging, entering the homes, inquiring about 
the wife and children, giving advice, prescribing reme- 
dies, distributing blessings. Mingling closely with the 
common people they shared all their instincts, even the 
instinct of revolt against the great lords of the Church, 
and naturally sided with the communes against their 
lord bishops." 

Any consideration of the popular religious life of 
the Middle Ages would be incomplete that did not take 
into account their conception of the physical universe and 
of the forces which governed it. Those centuries have 
often been designated as the Age of Faith, but their 
superiority to modern times in respect to this virtue was 
due in some degree to their lack of knowledge. The con- 
ception of natural phenomena governed by fixed and 
unchanging laws was unknown. Every occurrence in 
nature was the result of the arbitrary act of some higher 
power, friendly or malignant. The air was the special 
domain of demons who sought thence to work their 
evil wills on men. Every unpropitious event was the 
work of devils — ^the storm, the drought, the pest of 
insects, the attack of savage beasts; so, too, disease and 
misfortune of every kind, war, pestilence and famine, 
lightning and shipwreck. To-day, with increasing con- 
trol over the forces of nature and greater knowledge of 
the laws under which the physical universe functions, 
man has been enabled to modify his material environ- 

414 



MEDIEVAL CHRISTIANITY 

merit, to avoid many catastrophes and to secure fairly 
adequate and regular means of sustaining life. We have 
harnessed the forces of nature and feel that we know the 
proximate causes of physical phenomena even though the 
ultimate cause still escapes us. The knowledge that the 
heavenly bodies move in orbits that can be mathematically 
determined, that the spread of malaria is due to mos- 
quitoes whose elimination causes the disease to disappear, 
that small-pox is a germ disease that can be combatted 
by sanitation and, vaccination — facts such as these tend 
to weaken a belief in the arbitrary interference of good 
or bad spirits in the orderly course of nature. But in the 
Middle Ages the conception of the reign of law was 
wanting. Each occurrence was due to the interference 
of supernatural powers actuated by the same sort of 
motives as man himself and differing from him chiefly 
only in the possession of greater powers. The influence 
of Satan and his hosts was measured by the extent of the 
evils of daily life, and mediaeval man would have lived 
in an atmosphere of terror had he not been able to sum- 
mon to his aid the help that God placed within his reach 
. through the mediation of the Church. 

To the popular mind this divine protection and assist- 
ance could most readily be secured by appeal to the saints. 
For their subordinate position in heaven, for their want 
of divine authority, for their possession of intermediary 
powers only, compensation was found in their numbers, 
their human qualities and the restriction of their interests 
in so many cases to particular fields of activity. Thus 
each guild of workmen was placed under the protection 
of a particular saint, each district had its patron 
in heaven. Some saints instead of looking after a 
local group of people interested themselves in some 
special field of work. St. Nicholas saved shipwrecked 
sailors; St. Eligius cured sick horses, probably because 
he was the patron of blacksmiths; St. Didier was ap- 

415 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

pealed to for protection of the crops from moles and ver- 
min; in Beam there was a local saint, Plouradou, who 
kept children from crying. In fact, there was not a 
danger nor an annoyance that could threaten the people 
of the Middle Ages but there was some saint whose busi- 
ness it was to furnish protection when properly appealed 
to. Nations, too, had their heavenly advocates. Thus 
St. George fought for England and St. Michael for 
France, so that when these two countries were at war 
there must have been something like commotion in heaven. 

In popular religion pagan ideas of magic survived 
throughout the Middle Ages. Honor paid to the heavenly 
powers was supposed to secure their intervention without 
regard to the moral condition or spiritual state of the 
suppliant, as may be seen in the story of the robber who 
had such veneration for the Virgin that he never set out 
to commit a crime without first repeating an Ave Maria 
and praying her not to permit him to die in that sin. 
When at last he was captured and hung he remained 
alive three days on the gallows and when taken down 
by the astonished authorities declared that his feet had 
been supported by a beautiful virgin all that time so that 
he did not choke. On promising amendment, he was 
allowed to go free. Another story showing the magic 
effect of formula is that of the bird owned by a pious 
old woman who had such a veneration for St. Thomas 
of Canterbury that she was always repeating, *' St. 
Thomas, have mercy on me," until the bird had learned 
the phrase. One day a hawk seized the old woman's pet 
and was flying away with it when it cried out the magic 
words and was released in safety by the interposition of 
the saint. 

Like examples of superstition might be multiplied in- 
definitely; and proofs of the use by the ignorant masses 
of relics, holy water, the Eucharist, etc., as fetishes pure 
and simple abound in mediaeval literature. Such practices, 

416 



MEDIEVAL CHRISTIANITY 

however, were never sanctioned by the official teaching 
of the Church, though it must be admitted that its officers 
often made use of these superstitions and even encouraged, 
them as a means of restraint and control over the turbu- 
lent masses. And this cannot be reckoned as cunning or 
hypocrisy on their part, for the clergy shared with the 
people their culture and their outlook upon the world. 

In considering various characteristics of mediaeval 
Christianity we cannot help observing that most of them 
have come down in some form and to some extent into 
the religious society of our own day. Manifestations of 
superstition and religious terror are by no means rare 
among the ignorant. In many directions the deadening 
effects of ceremonial observances on the free develop- 
ment of spiritual life may be noted. In the matter of 
tolerance toward religious discussion and criticism, we 
make claim to a still greater amount of liberality even 
though it may sometimes be based on indifference rather 
than on conviction. But there was one respect in which 
the position of the mediaeval Church was unique, since it 
resulted from a condition of society never likely to be 
seen again. I refer to the relations of the Church to the 
State and the theories upon which the relation was based. 

Throughout the Middle Ages the Church and the State 
were united and the two institutions were considered 
simply as tw^o aspects of a common and unified organiza- 
tion of mankind. Both depended for their sanction on 
the divine wnll, and inasmuch as that will could not be 
conceived as expressing itself in heterogeneous forms any 
real dissociation of Church and State seemed like a denial 
of the divine unity. The two were, it is true, separate 
organizations and each pursued certain ends peculiar to 
itself, but both existed for one ultimate purpose, the sal- 
vation of man. St. Augustine, in the fifth century, had 
been the first to consider their relation to each otHer as 
parts of the same divine plan. In one of the great books 

27 4ir 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

of earlier Christian literature, De Civitate Dei, " God's 
State," he taught that the various empires of the ancient 
world had come into existence by the will of God in order 
that mankind might be brought together in unity and dis- 
ciplined so as to prepare the world for the appearance of 
Christ and the reception of His message. Now that Christ 
had come, the Church He founded was the true and the 
higher State to which all His followers owed their first 
allegiance. Not that Augustine conceived that the new 
dispensation had removed all need of the temporal state. 
It still existed to suppress crime, to preserve order, to 
defend the Church of God against its enemies and main- 
tain the unity of the faith. But its position was to be a 
subordinate one and its authority dependent on obedience 
to God's will. This view of the inferior and ancillary 
position of the State in relation to the Church was never 
lost sight of, though it was obscured in the following 
centuries by the confusion and anarchy attendant on the 
fall of the Roman empire and the setting up of the new 
Germanic governments. For a time, indeed, it seemed 
as though the position of the two organizations was to 
be reversed, for the secular powers had need of the 
Church's wealth and authority, and its separate life was 
in danger of being absorbed by feudalism. Toward the 
end of the eleventh century, however, the ecclesiastical 
theory was reestablished and maintained its ascendancy 
in the realm of political speculation throughout the re- 
mainder of the mediaeval period. 

It was an age when men's minds were completely 
dominated by the conception of unity. The universe was 
a single whole ruled by one Lord, Jesus Christ. So, 
too, each part of the universe was a unit under the same 
Ruler. Mankind itself was one mystic body ruled by 
Christ and organized in one Church of which He was 
the head. His representative and vice-regent on earth, 
however, was the pope to whom men owed obedience in 

418 



MEDIEVAL CHRISTIANITY 

all things as to God. If it had not been for Adam's dis- 
obedience and fall, no other organization would have been 
necessary. But with sin came violence and with violence, 
domination of man over his fellows. Thus arose political 
government, which was permitted, indeed, but not or- 
dained, by God. " Who does not know," Avrote Pope 
Gregory VII, " that kings and dukes have inherited their 
power from those who, ignorant of God, have succeeded 
with blind presumption in establishing domination over 
their equals by means of pride, rapine, perfidy, murder, 
and all wickedness, at the instigation of the devil, the 
prince of this world? " 

Such being the origin of secular government, the 
creature of ambition and injustice, it could find a legiti- 
mate place in the scheme of Divine Providence only by 
being sanctified and hallowed by the Church. Worldly 
power was instituted by man, the ecclesiastical power by 
God, which thus has the right and the duty to supervise 
secular government. The humblest priest, through the 
authority given him to administer the sacraments and 
thus nourish the spiritual life of man, is superior to the 
greatest king or emperor whose activities are limited to 
mundane interests; while the pope, who unites in himself 
the whole sum of sacerdotal power, is the supervisor 
and ruler of all mankind. It is by his hands, as the 
divinely appointed head of the Church, that God transmits 
to princes their authority over their subjects, and thus 
consecrates the State so far as it is capable of consecra- 
tion. If, however, the prince neglects his duty, if he is 
unjust or tyrannical, if he is unmindful of the spiritual 
welfare of his subjects or of the interests of the 
superior body, the Church, it is for the pope to depose 
him, to release his subjects from their oaths of allegiance 
and to secure a new ruler who is willing to promote their 
eternal welfare. 

These views of the subordination of the temporal to 

419 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

the spiritual power were expressed most clearly in the 
Middle Ages by Boniface VIII in the famous bull Unam 
Sanctam. There is, he said, but one universal Church, 
of which Christ is head, whose vicar on earth is the 
successor of St. Peter. In this Church and under its 
control are two kinds of authority, spiritual and tem- 
poral. Whoever claims that the temporal power is not in 
the hands of the pope has ill understood God's ordi- 
nances. Both are under the control of the Church. The 
spiritual power is wielded directly by the priest, but the 
temporal by the hands of kings and soldiers, yet only 
for the benefit of the Church and at its will and suffer- 
ance. It is fitting that temporal authority should be sub- 
ject to the spiritual power for it is a divine ordinance 
that the lower should be ruled by the higher. '' It be- 
hooves us, therefore," he goes on, " the more freely to 
confess that the spiritual power excels in dignity and 
nobility any form whatsoever of earthly power, as spirit- 
ual interests exceed the temporal in importance. . . . 
For the truth bearing witness, it is for the spiritual power 
to establish the earthly power and to judge it, if it be 
not good. ... If the earthly power shall err, it shall be 
judged by the spiritual power; if the lesser spiritual power 
err, it shall be judged by the higher. But if the supreme 
power {i.e., the papacy) err, it can be judged by God 
alone and not by man, the apostles bearing witness, say- 
ing, the spiritual man judges all things but he himself is 
judged by no one. ... We, moreover, proclaim, declare 
and pronounce that it is altogether necessary to salvation 
for every human being to be subject to the Roman 
Pontiff." 

Though this famous exposition of the position of the 
Church in its relation to the State was not made until 
the close of the thirteenth century, the same theory was 
implied and acted upon in the eleventh by Gregory VII. 
His ideal was that of a pope supervising, as God's agent, 

420 



MEDIEVAL CHRISTIANITY 

the administration of the world, protecting the weak, 
encouraging the upright, warning and deposing the despot 
and ushering in the reign of justice and righteousness. 
It was a lofty ideal, " and could his dreams have been 
carried out in the purity and scope of their creator they 
would have constituted ' almost the highest earthly form 
in which mankind could have seen the expression of its 
unity and harmony.' " That they were impossible of 
realization was due to the fallible human nature of the 
men who directed the destinies of the Church. What- 
ever may be our beliefs as to its divine inspiration, it 
would be a bold student of history who would claim that 
this inspiration extended to the political activities of the 
popes in their relations with the princes of Europe. The 
position of the head of Christendom as temporal ruler of 
a state in Central Italy, the struggles and intrigues neces- 
sary to protect his political independence, first against the 
claims of Germany and later against those of France and 
Spain, as well as the worldly ambitions and temporal 
interests of churchmen elsewhere, demonstrated the weak- 
ness of their claim to be acting as the unbiased arbiters 
of Europe. 

And yet, though the Church's claim to the supervision 
of the State's activities and to the right of judging the 
justice of its conduct was impossible of realization, we 
should not blind ourselves either to the greatness of its 
motives or the value of what it really accomplished in 
this direction. Outside the papal domain in Italy the 
Church was an international institution, standing above 
all secular governments. Its universal recognition made 
it a power whose moral judgments had more weight than 
positive laws and the fear of its condemnation restrained 
many an unjust ruler and made the lot of the common 
people more endurable. It was a standing protest against 
the doctrine of the unlimited sovereignty of the State. 
To-day the State stands above everything. The life and 

421 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

fate of every one of its citizens is subject to its absolute 
commands and there is no appeal from its decisions, how- 
ever unjust they may be. This was a situation unknown 
in the Middle Ages, and we are suffering to-day for the 
want of some institution through which the moral sense 
of mankind may assert itself against the demands of 
political force. 

The Church still holds to-day to the general premises 
on which it based the theory of its relations to the State 
in the Middle Ages. These premises include a belief in 
the divine governance of human affairs, the divine insti- 
tution of all human authority and the right of the Church 
to the free exercise of its functions as the guardian of 
the eternal interests of mankind as opposed to their tem- 
poral interests, which are the care of the State. The prac- 
tical difference in the application of these principles, 
then and now, is due first, to the greater emphasis laid 
in the Middle Ages on the claims of the future life, 
ov(^ing partly to the hard conditions under which men 
lived and the need of offering a compensation in the 
world to come for the evils and sufferings of this life; 
and, second, to the low stage of mediaeval political or- 
ganization which disqualified the State from performing 
many of the functions which it undertakes to-day. This 
weakness enabled the Church to set what limits it chose 
to its own activities and even forced it to assume the 
control of many interests which in modern times are con- 
sidered either partly or entirely secular and so under the 
jurisdiction of the State. Thus, in the Middle Ages, 
the Church attended to the relief of the poor and super- 
vised all charitable activities. Education, whether re- 
ligious or secular, was in its charge and it preserved a 
strict censorship of ideas. It maintained a system of 
courts which followed a more enlightened procedure than 
the courts of the state and had a wider jurisdiction. 
Not only did they claim exclusive control over Church 

422 



MEDIEVAL CHRISTIANITY 

property and over all cases, whether civil or criminal, in 
which the members of the clergy were interested, and 
in cases involving the rites or sacraments of the Church, 
such as marriage, legitimacy, and the probate of wills; 
but these Church courts were also open for the ad- 
judication of all affairs of the weak and helpless, such as 
widows and orphans and for all who claimed to be the 
victims of injustice in the secular courts. In addition 
to the wide jurisdiction of its courts, the Church claimed 
the exclusive control of the immense wealth which the 
piety of ages had bestowed upon it until it was estimated 
that it possessed one-quarter of the land of Europe. It 
denied the right of the State to tax this property or to 
have any voice in its management or disposition. It even 
went farther and sought to determine, to a considerable 
extent, the economic conditions under which the people of 
Europe lived. It forbade the charging of interest on loans ; 
it advocated the theory of the just price for commodities, 
which tended to interfere with the natural laws of supply 
and demand ; it was interested in questions of competition 
and sought to maintain an equality of economic oppor- 
tunity among members of the same class or trade; and 
it attempted to prevent the exploitation of the weak by 
the strong, so that a form of Christian socialism may b?* 
said to have existed in the Middle Ages. 

Although the exercise of all these forms of seculaf 
authority was largely forced upon the Church by the inca- 
pacity of the temporal power, they gave rise to claims and 
ambitions which the ecclesiastical organization refused 
to abandon voluntarily when Europe emerged from feu- 
dalism and the State attempted to resume those functions 
which it had allowed to fall from its grasp since the days 
of the Roman empire. There is an instinct in human 
nature which prevents any body of men from willingly 
surrendering such powers or authority as they have once 
possessed and so the Church clung to its secular preroga- 

423 



RELIGIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT 

tives long after the conditions which created them had 
ceased to exist. Before the close of the Middle Ages 
the modern State had come into existence, with its strong 
national feeling, its intense patriotism, its secularization 
of interests and its jealousy of outside interference. It 
demanded the exclusive control of its own destinies and 
strongly resented the interference of the Church. There 
followed from the thirteenth century down a series of 
struggles between the secular and the ecclesiastical powers 
in which the Church yielded step by step, but only under 
the pressure of superior force. It never willingly sur- 
rendered a single position and its reluctance to grant con- 
cessions, to recognize the changed conditions that had 
given the new states the power and the will to admin- 
ister the temporal affairs of their own citizens, created in 
those bodies a spirit of suspicion and hostility that was 
the political cause of the Reformation. When to these 
causes of disaffection there were added the secular pre- 
occupations following the Renaissance, the economic 
rivalries that arose after the Age of Discovery and the 
theological disputes of the sixteenth century, the Great 
Revolt occurred, and the mediaeval ecclesiastical system 
disappeared. 

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Heimbucher. M. : Die Orden und Kongregationen der katholischen 
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424 






MEDIEVAL CHRISTIANITY 

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